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TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


“THE MASTER OF MYSTERY” 


WILLIAM LE QUEUX'S NOVELS 


“ Mr. William Le Queux retains his position as ' The 
Master of Mystery.’ . . . He is far too skilful to allow 
pause for thought; he whirls his readers from incident to 
incident, holding their attention from the first page to the 
close of the book.” — Pall Mall Gazette. 

" Mr. Le Queux is the master of mystery. He never fails 
to produce the correct illusion. He always leaves us 
panting for more — a brilliant feat.”— Daily Graphic. 

” Mr. Le Queux is still ‘ The Master of Mystery.’ ” — 
Madame. 

” Mr. Le Queux is a most experienced hand in writing 
sensational fiction. He never loses the grip of his readers.” — 

Publishers’ Circular. 

“ Mr. Le Queux always grips his reader, and holds him 
to the last page.”— Bristol Times and Mirror. 

“ Mr. Le Queux’s books once begun must be read to the 
end.”— Evening News. 

” There is no better companion on a railway journey 
than Mr. William Le Queux.” — Daily Mail. 

” Mr. Le Queux knows his business, and carries it on 
vigorously and prosperously. His stories are always 
fantastic and thrilling.” — Daily Telegraph. 

” Mr. Le Queux is an adept at the semi-detective story. 
His work is always excellent.” — Review of Reviev.'s. 

” Mr. Le Queux is always so refreshing in his stories of 
adventure that one knows on taking up a new book of his 
that one will be amused.” — Birmingham Post. 

” Mr. Le Queux’s books are delightfully convincing.” — 
Scotsman. 

" Mr. Le Queux’s books are always exciting and absorb- 
ing. His mysteries are enthralling and his skill is world- 
famous.”— Liverpool Daily Post. 

” Mr. Le Queux has brought the art of the sensational 
novel to high perfection.” — Northern Whig. 

” Mr. Le Queux is so true to his own style that any one 
familiar with his books would certainly guess him to be 
the author, even if his name were not given.” — Methodist 
Recorder. 

” ‘ As good wine needs no bush ’ so no mystery story by 
Mr. Le Queux, the popular weaver of tales of crime, needs 
praise for its skill. Any novel with this author’s name 
appended is sure to be ingenious in design and cleverly 
worked out.” — Bookseller. 

“ Mr. Le Queux is always reliable. The reader who 
picks up any of his latest novels knows what to expect.” — 

Bookman. 

" Mr. Le Queux’s admirers are legion, and the issue of a 
new novel is to them one of the most felicitous events that 
can hapnen.”— Newcastle Daily Chronicle. 

” Mr. Le Qiieux is the master of the art of mystery- 
creating.” — Liverpool Daily Post, 



TRACKED BY 
WIRELESS 


BY 

WILLIAM LE OUEUX 

Member of the Institute of Radio Engineers 


1922 

MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 


NEW YORK 


* 



TO 

MY FRIEND 

MAJOR HUMPHRY MacCALLUM 

WITHOUT WTIOSB KINT> AID THIS SERIES OF 
WIRELESS ROMANCES WOULD NBMSR 
HAX'B BEEN WRITTEN 

'b I I n 0 

'X ^ 


Printed in Great Britain. Cinema and translation rights 

reserved. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I THE 

SECRET SIGNAL 



PAGE 

II 

II 

THE 

VOICE FROM THE 

VOID . 


31 

III 

THE 

CALICO GLOVE 

♦ 


50 

IV 

THE 

devil’s oven 

• 


68 

V 

THE 

MYSTERY WIDOW 



. 89 

VI 

THE 

CLOVEN HOOF 

• 


109 

VII 

THE 

POISON FACTORY 

• 


128 

VIII 

THE 

GREAT INTRIGUE 

• 


. 146 

IX 

THE 

THREE BAD MEN 

• 


. 166 

X 

THE 

MYSTERY OF BERENICE 


. 185 

XI 

THE 

MARKED MAN 

• 


204 

XII 

THE 

crow’s CLIFF 

, 4 


. 223 


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TRACKED BY WIRELESS. 


CHAPTER I 

THE SECRET SIGNAL 

Geoffrey Falconer removed the wireless telephone 
receivers from his ears, and sat back in his wooden 
chair, staring straight before him, utterly puzzled. 

“ Eight een-and-a-half minutes past seven I” he 
muttered to himself, glancing up at the big round 
clock above the long bench upon which a number of 
complicated-looking wireless instruments were set out. 

In front of him were half-a-dozen square mahogany 
boxes with tops of ebonite and circles of brass studs, 
with white circular dials and black knobs and a panel 
of ebonite with four big electric globes for wireless 
transmission. Across the table ran many red, white, 
and green wires from a perfect maze of brass terminal 
screws, while in one oblong box there burned brightly 
seven little tube-shaped electric glow-lamps, the valves 
of the latest instrument which amplified the most feeble 
signals coming in from space from every part of the 
western world. It was the newest wireless device for 
the reception of weak signals and he himself had made 
an improvement upon it, a new microphone amplifier 
which was at present his own secret. 

“ Eighteen-and-a-half minutes past seven!” he 
repeated. “ Always at the same moment that strange 
signal is repeated three times. And not Morse — 
certainly not in the Morse code. It's a most mysterious 
note,” he went on, speaking to himself. ” Others must 
surely hear it — or else my amplifier is so ultra-sensitive 
that I alone am able to listen.” 


12 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


He took from near his elbow a long scribbling-diary, 
and glancing through its pages, noted various entries 
concerning that mysterious signal which never failed 
to ^ come each evening at eighteen-and-a-half minutes 
past seven. 

That small private experimental laboratory in the 
ground floor room of a spacious country house on the 
brow of a low hill in Essex was well fitted with all 
kinds of apparatus for wireless telephony, telegraphy, 
and the newest invention of direction-finding for the 
guidance of aircraft in darkness or fog. 

The tall, clean-shaven, dark-eyed young man, whose 
hair was brushed back, and whose bearing was dis- 
tinctly military, had done excellent service in the 
wireless department of the Royal Air Force, and had 
won his Military Cross. Before the war, at the age 
of nineteen, he had been a persevering amateur, keenly 
interested in the mysteries of wireless. His knowledge 
thus gained, with crystal receivers and “ spark ” 
transmitters, stood him in good stead ; hence, during 
the war, he had held a number of responsible appoint- 
ments connected with aircraft wireless. 

After demobilisation he had at once taken his degree 
in Science, and then joined the research department 
of the great Marconi organisation, in which he was 
showing excellent promise. Quiet and unassuming, 
he possessed for his age unusual technical and mathe- 
matical knowledge, and great things were being pre- 
dicted of him by his superiors at Marconi House. 
Already he had made certain improvements in the 
application of the telephone to wireless, together with 
small adjustments and the use of condensers in certain 
circuits, technicalities which need not be referred to 
here because only the expert could follow their import- 
ance. Suffice it to say that Geoffrey Falconer’s whole 
heart was in his work. Though he did wireless all 
day in the great well-lit laboratory at the Chelmsford 
works, he nevertheless spent most of his evenings at 
his own private wireless station at his father’s house 
at Warley, about a mile from Brentwood, which was 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


13 

about ten miles from Chelmsford and twenty from 
London. 

Old Professor Falconer's house, a Georgian one, 
half-covered with ivy and surrounded by several giant 
cedars, stood well back from the broad high road which 
runs from Brentwood Station through Great Warley 
Street to Upminster. Those who pass it will see a 
double-fronted house approached by a curved drive 
half-hidden from the road by a high yew hedge. The 
big gates of wrought iron are as ancient as the house, 
which, built in the days of George the First, still retains 
its old-world atmosphere of the times when dandified 
neighbours in wigs and patches were borne along the 
drive in their sedans to visit old Squire Falconer and 
his wife. 

Outw'ardly the house is the reverse of artistic, 
but within it is a charming old place, with oak floors 
and panelled walls, a great well staircase leading from 
the wide square hall, while the furniture is even to-day 
mostly in keeping with its restful atmosphere. 

The Falconers have lived at Westfield Manor ever 
since its construction. Its present owner, John 
Falconer, had been a famous Professor of Science at 
Oxford, until he retired and returned to Warley to 
enjoy the evening of his days, while his son Geoffrey, 
who had been brought up in an atmosphere of science, 
and who followed closely the footsteps of his dis- 
tinguished father, now lived with him on being 
demobilised. 

By the elastic licence granted to him as an experi- 
menter by the General Post Office Geoffrey had been 
allowed to erect high twin aerial wires double the 
length of the official regulation of one hundred feet, and 
these, suspended from poles placed in the tops of two 
of the high Wellingtonias, were brought across the wide 
lawn to the rear of the house, and down into the room 
in which the young man was seated. 

“ Always the same long drawn-out note at exactly 
the same time ! " he went on. “ Eleven-and-a-half 


14 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

minutes before ‘ F.L/ sends his weather report. What, 
I wonder, can it mean ? " 

From the Eiffel Tower, whose call-letters in the 
radio-telegraphic code are “ F.L.," weather reports 
from western Europe are each evening sent out 
upon so powerful a note that they are read on the 
opposite side of the Atlantic. Young Falconer, 
therefore, fell to wondering whether those strange 
signals he heard nightly, and which were so 
unaccountable, were not in some way connected with 
the transmission from Paris. 

The eleven-and-a-half minutes passed, and just as 
the Eiffel Tower began to call in that peculiar cock- 
crowing note which all wireless men know so well, 
his father entered. 

" Hulloa, Geoff ! I thought you had gone up to 
town — it’s Mrs. Beverley’s dance, is it not ? ” 

“Yes,” replied the young radio-engineer ; “ but 

I’ve just been listening. I’ve tuned in that same 
strange signal as last night. It is really most curious.” 

“ Automatic transmission, perhaps,” replied the 
alert, white-bearded old gentlemen. “ Did you not 
say that there were some transmissions at a hundred 
words a minute in progress ? ” 

“Yes, Witham and Farnborough. But I have 
heard them many times during the past few weeks. 
I know the note of Farnborough. Besides, his 
wave-length is different. This mysterious signal is 
on eleven hundred metres — a continuous wave — above 
the ships and the Air Ministry.” 

“ And nobody else hears it except yourself ? ” asked 
the lean, deep-eyed old man, who possessed such wide 
scientific knowledge, though he admitted that wireless 
was a branch with which he was not familiar. Radio- 
telegraphy was a new science, fresh discoveries being 
made daily by those who, like his son, were engaged 
in active research work. 

“ Not so far as I can learn. I’ve asked our people 
at Poldhu, Carnarvon, and Witham, and I’ve listened 
myself at Chelmsford, but nobody hears it.” 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 15 

Your improved amplifier — without a doubt ! " 
his father said, bending over the long oblong metal 
case in which the seven little lights were burning in 
vacuum tubes about three inches long, and set in a 
row. Attached to the amplifier was a double note- 
magnifier, and an oblong wooden box — the invention 
of Geoffrey Falconer. 

Perhaps,” said the young man, whose well-cut, 
impelling countenance wore a puzzled look. ” But 
I can't see any reason why I should be able to detect 
signals which are lost to others,” he added. ” I know 
I've got excellent rectification, but not more than the 
ordinary type of ‘fifty-five amplifier.' It is only the 
amplification that is higher.” 

” Well, the signals are certainly a mystery,” agreed 
the Professor. ” When I listened to it last night it 
seemed like a high winter wind howling through a 
crack in a door or window.” 

‘‘To you it might. But, you see, I've developed 
the wireless ear, and sounds that you pass, I recognise.” 

‘‘ Of course, my boy,” the old gentleman said. 
‘‘You live for wireless, just as I now live to complete 
my great book. We must both persevere in our own 
spheres. I am only glad that the war is over, and 
now that your poor mother is, alas ! dead, you have 
returned to keep me company in my loneliness,” and 
the old man sighed at the remembrance of his dear, 
devoted wife, who had died two years before. 

“ Well, the old place could not be handier for me — 
close to Chelmsford. Besides, away here I can continue 
my research work each night without disturbance.” 

‘‘ That's so. But, surely, you recollect accepting 
the invitation Mrs. Beverley so kindly sent us ? We 
really ought to go,” his father urged. ‘‘ It isn't too 
late — even now.” 

Geoffrey smiled within himself. 

‘‘ Right-0 ! I suppose we ought,” he replied. 
‘‘ Let's dress at once. I'll take you to the station in 
the side-car, and we can get a hasty bit of dinner at 
the club before we go along to Upper Brook Street. 


i6 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


Then he turned down the big aerial switch which 
sent the incoming currents to earth and acted as a 
protection to his instruments against either lightning 
or “ strays.” And closing the door of the room, 
he went to put on evening clothes. 

When Professor Falconer and his son entered Mrs. 
Beverley's fine house in Upper Brook Street it was 
nearly half-past nine. As the door opened there came 
the strains of an orchestra. Mrs. Beverley was the 
widow of a wealthy banker of Buenos Ayres, after whose 
death she had brought her daughter Sylvia to London 
where she had quickly become popular as a hostess, 
attracting about her all sorts of men and women who 
had “ done something.” 

When one was invited to Mrs. Beverley’s parties 
one was certain of meeting interesting people — Elions of 
the moment — ^whose faces peered out at one from all 
the picture papers — people in every walk of life, but 
all distinguished, if even by their vices. 

” Hulloa, Geoffrey ! ” exclaimed a slim, dark- 
haired young girl in a flame-coloured dance-frock and a 
charming hair ornament of gilt leaves. The dress 
was sleevless and cut daringly low in the corsage and 
the back. ” I thought you’d forgotten us I ” 

” Well, Sylvia, I’ll confess,” said Geoffrey in a low 
voice, taking the hand she held out to him “ As a 
matter of fact, I really had ! The pater only reminded 
me of it just in time for us to rush to the station.” 

” Ah ! Immersed as usual in your mysterious old 
wireless,” laughed the pretty daughter of the South 
American widow. ” I heard somebody say at a lunch 
at the Ritz the other day that all electrical people 
inevitably take to drink or to wireless.” 

” Well, I’m glad I haven’t yet taken to the former,” 
laughed the young man, and together they went into 
the fine drawing-room, where a gay dance was in progress. 

A few moments later the young man found his 
hostess, a stout, well-dressed woman, who possessed all 
the impelling manners of the well-bred South American, 
and who had hustled into Society until the newspapers 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


17 

were constantly chronicling her doings, describing her 
jewels, and printing her photograph, so that Suburbia 
knew more of Mrs. Beverley than even Mrs. Beverley 
knew herself. She loved Argentina, she confessed, 
but she loved London far better. Before her 
marriage she had known quite a lot of people in 
London society, for she had come over each year, and 
now, in her widowhood, she had returned, and certainly 
she was one of London’s prominent figures, for she 
entertained Cabinet Ministers, politicians, authors, 
painters — in fact, anybody who was anybody in 
London life. 

Geoffrey had first met her and her daughter while 
on the voyage from New York eighteen months before. 
He had been over on business to the transatlantic 
Wireless Station at Belmar — ^which, by the way, is in 
direct communication with Carnarvon by day and 
night — and on board they had been introduced, with 
the result that the widow had invited him to call upon 
her “ when she settled down." 

The pretty go-ahead Sylvia had attracted him, and 
when one day he had received a card at the Automobile 
Club he lost no time in resuming the very pleasant 
acquaintanceship. Indeed, Mrs. Beverley and Sylvia 
had motored down to Warley one day a month after- 
wards, and looked in at Geoffrey’s experimental labora- 
tory, bewildered at its maze of instruments, its many 
little glow-lamps and tangles of wire. 

Mother and daughter had listened upon the relay 
and "loud-speaker" of the wireless telephone to the 
Air Ministry at Croydon, Pulham, and Lympe, and 
to the Morse signis from Newfoundland, Cairo, 
Madrid, and other cities, until the girl, with whom he 
was secretly in love, had declared herself quite fascinated 
by the most modern of sciences. 

Indeed, it was this fascination which had first held 
the two young people in a common bond. On board 
the liner, though as an engineer of the Marconi Company 
he was constantly in and out of the wireless cabin 
because the operator was having some trouble with 

B 


i8 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

his spark transmission, it had never occurred to him 
to invite the girl in to listen. It was, indeed, not until 
a few hours before they reached Southampton that 
he had explained his profession to her. 

The pair had, on the voyage, fallen very much in 
love with each other, and now, thoroughly under- 
standing each other, they were carefully preserving 
their secret from Mrs. Beverley, whose great ambition, 
like that of many South American mothers, was to 
marry her daughter into the British Peerage. 

As a matter of fact, the real object of her lavish 
entertaining at Upper Brook Street was to find a 
suitable husband for Sylvia, a peer of wealth, no matter 
his age or past record. 

In Geoffrey Falconer, Sylva had found a clever, 
good-looking, unassiuning man, whose ideals coincided 
with her own, even though she naturally viewed England 
and English ways through South American spectacles. 
Yet for three years she had been at school at Versailles, 
and mixing with English girls as she had done, she had 
lost much of her American intonation of speech. 

The pair were genuinely attached to each other. 
The only third person who knew of this was the old 
Professor himself. Though thin and white-haired he was 
a genial old fellow, who dearly loved a joke, and who, 
when at Oxford, had been regarded by all the under- 
graduates as a real good sort. Many of his students 
had made their name in the world of politics and law, 
while one was now Governor of one of Britain’s most 
important colonies. 

Like father, like son. Geoffrey, though he had for 
four years been associated with those young men of 
the Air Force who, though so many of them had never 
flown a yard, considered themselves vastly superior 
to all others who trod the earth, had never imitated 
the " wrist- watch swank,” nor the drawl of that grey- 
uniformed genus who, during the war, brought personal 
egotism to such a fine art. He was quiet, unassuming 
studious, yet a firm-hearted, bold, and fearless 
Englishman. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 19 

Sylvia, thanks to her mother’s sly machinations, 
met numbers of eligible young men, many of whom 
had great fortunes looming in the future. But in 
the whirl of London society, with its dressing, dancing 
and dressmakers’ lure, she passed them all by, her 
only thought being of the young man whom she had 
met on board the liner. 

That night they had danced together several times, 
when suddenly, as they crossed the ballroom, the 
girl exclaimed : 

” Look ! Why there’s Mr. Glover ! You surely 
recollect him ? He came over with us I thought he 
was in Paris.” 

Falconer glanced across to a big, broad-shouldered, 
round-faced man, who was clean-shaven, with a 
lock of fair hair falling across his forehead, a man with 
protruding chin, thick lips, a pair of shrewd blue eyes, 
who wore an emerald in his shirt-front. 

In an instant a crowd of memories flashed across 
her companion’s mind. For a second he hesitated. 
Then he advanced, and greeted his fellow-traveller 
across the Atlantic. 

” It was awfully kind of your mother to ask me. 
Miss Beverley,” said the big, burly fellow to Sylvia 
as they shook hands. ” I took a house near Maidenhead, 
but I’ve been in Paris ever since we got over. I only 
got to the Ritz three days ago, and received her card 
through Morgan’s.” 

” Well, we’re awfully pleased to see you,” Sylvia 
declared. ” We’ve at last settled in London, and it’s 
real good to be here.” 

” Yes,” drawled Mr. George Glover. ” I usually 
come over to Europe twdce a year on business, and I 
always look forward to it. Americans who haven’t 
travelled never realise the delights of dear old London, 
do they ? ” 

Presently the trio went in to supper together. Quite 
casually Sylvia mentioned Geoffrey’s connection with 
wireless, whereupon Glover began to discuss some of 
the newest theories in a manner unusually intelligent 


20 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


for the uninitiated. This caused Geoffrey’s thoughts 
to wander far from that gay crowd by which he was 
surrounded. 

The man seated opposite him was something of a 
mystery. On the trip over to Europe, at one o’clock 
one morning, he had despatched from the ship a curious 
wireless message. Geoffrey had happened to be in the 
cabin with the chief wireless operator when the message 
had been brought in. He was assisting the operator 
to adjust his spark, which was slightly out of order. 
Ships' wireless sets, like watches, are sometimes liable 
to vagaries. Why, nobody can tell. 

The message sent in was marked very urgent,” 
but the ” spark ” was poor, and the range at the moment 
rather inefficient As it lay beside the transmitting 
key, Geoffrey read it 

He remembered it quite distinctly because, by some 
strange intuition, he felt that it was not what it pre- 
tended to be. One sometimes experiences strange 
suspicions. And in this case Geoffrey wondered. He 
knew the sender, and perhaps because of his friendship 
with Sylvia and her mother, he had felt a little irritation, 
for he instinctively mistrusted the man. 

The message was of a commercial character, and 
read : 

“ Betsey, King's Arms Hotel, Norwich. — Don't 

deal directly demand delay execute slowly. — Glover." 

Next day he had found himself reflecting upon that 
message, and returning to the wireless cabin, he copied 
it. For a whole day he puzzled over it, when at last — 
used as he was to all sorts of ciphers and codes — ^he 
discovered in it a four-figure code. The initial letter 
of the first five words was ” D ” — the fourth letter of 
the alphabet. Then ” E ” — ^the fifth letter — and ” S ” 
— ^the nineteenth. Hence the message was no doubt 
in figure-code, and read “ 4519.” 

From that moment onward he had viewed the man 
Glover with considerable suspicion, but on landing 
at Southampton he had lost sight of him. And now he 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 21 

was much surprised to find him as guest of the rich 
widow. 

Sight of the thick-set, clean-shaven man had brought 
that strange message back to his memory, and the 
more so because on deck late one night he had seen 
the man talking in confidence to a stout, flashily- 
dressed woman, yet next day they had passed each 
other on deck as strangers ! 

As the trio sat at supper, Glover was most genial 
and full of merriment. That Sylvia liked him was 
plain, yet whether it was intuition or jealousy, Geoffrey, 
as later on he sat with his father in the last train from 
Liverpool Street, pondered again and again. 

On his return from Chelmsford each evening during 
the week that followed. Falconer sat down at a quarter 
past seven at his own wireless set, when, without fail, 
there came that strange, inexplicable and unreadable 
signal always at eighteen-and-a-half minutes past 
seven. 

Of operators at the great Marconi stations at Towyn, 
in Wales, and Clifden, in Ireland, as well as of several 
operators whom he knew at the busy coast stations 
at the North Foreland, Niton, and Cleethorpes, he made 
inquiry as to whether they had heard the same signal. 
Strangely enough, all the replies were in the negative. 

Indeed, one night he himself listened on the great 
aerial which is such a prominent feature in the landscape 
at Chelmsford, but failed to catch a single sound. 

Therefore, he proved beyond doubt that his own set 
was supersensitive, and that his improvement of the 
multi-valve amplifying detector was a consderable 
achievement. 

He, however, said nothing. At present it was his 
own secret. But he was not so much concerned with 
the new invention as in the solution of the mystery. 
By his research work in the wide field of radio-telegraphy 
he had developed a keen interest in anything that was 
mysterious, and here was presented an extremely curious 
problem. That oblong metal box with its seven little 


22 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


glowing glass tubes was the only instrument which 
picked up that inexplicable signal. 

A fortnight passed. Each anxious day young 
Falconer worked hard in the splendidly-equipped 
experimental laboratory in that hive of wireless industry 
at Chelmsford, where radio apparatus of all kinds was 
being constructed for every civilised nation — that 
triumph of the Italian inventor who gave to the world 
a means of instant and reliable communication unknown 
before those epoch-making experiments on Monte Nero, 
outside the sun-blanched town of Leghorn. Truly the 
science of radio-telegraphy has made rapid strides since 
the days of the “ coherer,” until now, after the war, it 
is the most advanced in our human civilisation, and at 
the same time full of romance. Not a month passes but 
something new is discovered in that high-built, well-knit 
laboratory, where daily the keenest brains of wireless 
experimenters are at work devising, testing, and too 
often scrapping new instruments, new circuits, and new 
devices in order to improve and render less complicated 
both the ordinary wireless by Morse, and that modern 
marvel, the wireless telephone. 

The world has yet to learn what it owes to wireless. 
Little does it dream of its aid to commerce in every 
quarter of the globe ; how much of the news it reads 
at its breakfast-table had been flashed through the ether 
for thousands of miles, or how every hour it outstrips 
the choked-up and behind-the-times submarine cable 
system. 

Geoffrey Falconer was very sorely puzzled. 

But why was that mysterious signal unheard by 
others ? Further, by what method was it being trans- 
mitted ? Being acquainted with every method of 
transmission, he guessed, after a number of tests, that 
it must be automatic. One day he took his improved 
microphone amplifier to the works at Chelmsford, and 
attaching it to the very complicated apparatus designed 
for the reception of signals automatically transmitted — 
a piece of apparatus far too technical to here describe — 
he sat at a quarter past seven awaiting the usual signal. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 23 

With him were two of the research staff, both as 
deeply interested in the mystery as himself, though 
upon their high-up aerial wires they had been unable to 
detect the signals in question. 

“ Hulloa I cried Boyd, a fair, clean-shaven man of 
thirty-five, who was a well-known radio-engineer. 
“ There she goes ! " 

The receiving apparatus gave a short quick buzz, 
thrice repeated, and then there was silence again. 

Eagerly Falconer took the record which had been 
made, and placing it in another small box, adjusted 
the head- 'phones, and depressing a key, allowed it to 
revolve slowly. The message became distinctly 
readable ! 

They were figures — the numerals 4519, thrice repeated. 
It was that same code-message which the genial Glover 
had sent from the liner in mid-Atlantic ! What could 
it mean ? 

Two facts were now proved — that the amplifier, 
as improved by Geoffrey, was a supersensitive instru- 
ment, which would, no doubt, have a great future 
before it, and bring its inventor both money and fame 
in the world of radio-telegraphy. Secondly, that some 
curious mystery lay behind the appearance of Mr. 
George Glover in London society. 

That night on arrival home, he told the Professor 
of his discovery, and both father and son agreed that 
it was necessary to make some searching investigations 
regarding Mrs. Beverley’s friend. 

With that object Geoffrey went up to London on 
the following day, and calling upon Sylvia fortunately 
found her alone. 

With difficulty he approached the subject of Glover, 
because he knew that the girl suspected him of jealousy. 
She had, indeed, hinted at it on the night of the dance. 
However, in the course of conversation, he casually 
referred to the man who had despatched that curious 
telegram from the liner. 

“Oh, yes ! “ the girl answered. “We see quite a 
lot of Mr. Glover now. Mother likes him immensely. 


24 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

He is enormously rich — has great oil interests in 
Roumania and in Baku. He made a great deal of 
money during the war, and he knows quite a number 
of good people in London. He’s going down to Lady 
Nassington's, in Sussex, next week — and we are going 
too." 

"You will be fellow-guests then ? " Falconer 
remarked. 

"Yes, Geoffrey. But you speak as though you 
resent it,” laughed the pretty girl. 

" Not at all," he hastened to assure her. " Only " 

" Only — ^what ? " she asked. 

" Well — ^nothing," he replied. " At least, nothing 
at present." 

" You're awfully mysterious, Geoffrey. What do 
you really mean ? " 

" Nothing," he declared. " What should I mean ? 
I hardly know your friend, Mr. Glover. Your mother, 
no doubt, knows him well." 

" Yes — and all about him," the girl replied. " He’s 
awfully kind to us. He took us to Brighton in his 
big car last Sunday week, and gave us a topping time 
there. He claims to be a American but I don’t know 
if he is." 

Geoffrey reflected. That strange series of secret 
signals held him mystified. So he determined to wait 
and watch. 

Next day, when in the experimental laboratory at 
Chelmsford, he took his friend, Frank Boyd, into his 
confidence regarding the signal they had tuned in, and 
also told him of the message sent by Glover late one 
night from mid-Atlantic. 

Boyd, who stood with the head-’phones in his hand, 
for he had been making a test upon a new direction- 
finding device, listened with great interest. 

" I agree. Falconer, there’s something wrong some- 
where," he remarked. " But who can have a trans- 
mitting-set which sends out messages upon a wave- 
length that we can’t get ? " 

" It may be by the new beam method," Falconer 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 25 

suggested, “ the method with which we are just now 
experimenting. Once or twice I’ve thought it might 
be a military continuous-wave set.” 

” If so — ^then they are in front of us. That, however, 
I very much doubt,” declared Boyd. ” The Germans 
thought themselves top-dogs in wireless before the war, 
but we beat them every time on their own ground — 
didn't we ? ” 

” We certainly did. Here, in these works, the inven- 
tions were made and developed for the Army, Navy, 
and Air Force. It’s up to us — to you and me personally 
— to solve this mystery.” 

” Yes, Falconer — and we'll do it,” said the other. 
” I don’t like the idea of signals being sent out that we 
can't read from our big aerial here.” 

” They are signals from nowhere, yet always the 
same, and at exactly the same time. G.M.T. never 
alters — neither does the signal,” Falconer said. 

So the pair agreed to listen still further, and to make 
investigation regarding the wealthy man from America, 
who had so suddenly arisen in the social firmament 
of post-war London. 

Geoffrey had some few days’ leave due to him, so 
he took it, and, unknown to Mrs. Beverley and her 
daughter, watched the gay house-party assemble at 
Nassington Hall, the seat of the Earl of Nassington, 
not far from Crowborough, in Sussex. 

Now, near Crowborough there was a wireless station, 
and on the night of Geoffrey’s arrival at the Beacon 
Hotel, he called upon the non-commissioned officer 
in charge, introduced himself, and was afforded an 
opportunity of looking over the apparatus. Naturally 
the man in charge was gratified that such an expert 
as Geoffrey Falconer should examine their set, and 
pronounce both transmission and reception unusually 
good. Then, soon after ten o’clock, Geoffrey returned 
to the Beacon. 

That night he sent a note in secret to Sylvia, and 
in the autumn afternoon next day they met at the 
junction of the two roads at Harden 's Hill. 


26 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


I'm down here to have a look at a wireless set 
close by,” he explained. ” Isn’t it fortunate ? I’ll 
be here for a couple of days, I expect.” 

” You gave me a real surprise,” the girl said. “ When 
Thring brought me your note with my morning tea 
I could hardly believe that you were so close at hand. 
Why not come in to tea ? Mother will introduce you 
to Lady Nassington.” 

No,” he replied. ” I have, unfortunately, a lot of 
work to do at the wireless station. Please excuse me.” 

” Ah 1 I know. You don’t want to meet Mr. Glover,” 
laughed the girl. ” Now confess it ! ” 

” It isn't that, I assure you, Sylvia. But I would 
rather have a walk and a chat with you than gossip 
with all those people with whom I have so very little 
in common.” 

” Yes, Geoffrey, I know. You are engrossed in 
your wireless inventions,” she replied, gazing affec- 
tionately into his eyes. ” And, after all, you are 
right. We women enjoy ourselves, but men who serve 
the world as you do are nobler if they keep away from 
all our feminine frivolities.” 

” I suppose Glover is merry, as usual — quite a good 
fellow, isn't he ? ” 

” Yes. He’s the soul of the house-party. They 
are all out shooting to-day. Madame Valdavia, the 
wife of the Spanish millionaire banker, arrived last 
night. She's quite young and charming. I wish you 
could meet her.” 

” I can’t. I’m sorry.” 

“You can if you will only call on mother to-morrow.” 

“ But I’m really too busy, Sylvia — so do please 
excuse me,” he pleaded, as they walked along the 
leaf -strewn path through the wood from Friar's Gate, 
where half a mile away towards Lone Oak the shooting 
party were giving evidence of good sport. 

“ We have a fancy dress dinner to-night. Every one 
is wearing quaint costumes, and there’s certain to be 
a lot of fun. The party is really most enjoyable. I 
do wish you would call, Geoffrey — do,” she urged. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 27 

“No," said the young man very seriously. “ I have 
reasons which I will tell you afterwards." 

“You are always so mysterious," she declared with 
a pretty pout. “ I believe it is your horrible old wireless 
which makes you so." 

“ No, not horrible," he protested with a laugh. 
“ Interesting, I admit — in more senses than one." 

“ Well — interesting, then," she agreed with a nod of 
her pretty head. “ But I can't see why you are so 
very interested in Mr. Glover. Every one at Lady 
Nassington's likes him." 

“So do I, Sylvia." 

“ Then why be so mysterious ? " 

“I'm not mysterious. I happened to have come 
down to see the wireless installation here, and you are 
staying at a country house in the vicinity. So I just 
looked you up — that's all." 

“ But why don't you call ? I want to introduce you 
to them all," 

“ And if I called to see you, your friend Glover, 
knowing of our friendship, would, in the smoking- 
room, whisper that I had followed you down here. 
No. I prefer that we should preserve our secret, 
Sylvia. You surely don't want to cause your mother 
annoyance and anxiety ? Remember you are to marry 
a man of title. At the very thought of your being 
engaged to me your mother would faint." 

“Yes," laughed the girl, dashing aside some dead 
leaves with her walking stick. “ I really think she 
would." 

“ Then, for the present, let us remain quite quiet," 
urged young Falconer. “ I will see you again when 
you get back to town." 

A few moments later, while they stood on the path 
beneath the leafless trees, the young man raised her 
gloved hand to his lips, and then they parted, she to 
hurry on and rejoin the guns, and he to return to 
Crowborough. 

Falconer was there with a distinct purpose. He 
walked back to the Beacon Hotel, ate his dinner, and 


28 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

played billiards until half-past ten o’clock, when he 
put on his coat and went out for a moonlight walk. 
He pictured to himself the gay scene at Nassington 
Hall, which he might easily have joined, yet he hesitated 
because of the problem he had in hand. 

The white moon shone brightly over the Sussex 
downs as he walked along the high road to where the 
wireless station was installed. 

He called there and had another chat with the 
sergeant on duty. Then he resumed his walk in the 
direction of Nassington Hall. 

When within a hundred yards of a side gate which 
gave entrance to a short cut from the hall to the railway 
station, he drew back under a huge thorn-bush and lit 
a cigarette. 

He wondered whether he was not making a fool of 
himself. From where he stood he could see in the 
distance the many lighted windows of the Hall. No 
doubt, scenes of merriment were taking place within. 

The clock of Crowborough Church chimed the hour 
of one — half-past — then two o’clock. The distant 
windows were still lit, and finding a fallen tree, he sat 
down to contemplate. 

Soon after two o’clock the lights in the distant 
windows died away, one after another. The fun was 
over. The wind blew cold, and even in his thick over- 
coat he shivered. Yet when he was putting a theory to 
the test in wireless or otherwise, he never begrudged 
sleepless hours. 

Just after four in the morning, while he still remained 
patiently at his post, Geoffrey’s quick ear suddenly 
heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Drawing 
back, he watched a dark figure coming hurriedly from 
the direction of the Hall, until, when it passed close 
by him, he saw in the dull half-light that it was a middle- 
aged countryman, evidently a local farmer who was 
up and about betimes. 

In chagrin he drew back into his place of conceal- 
ment, but a few seconds after the man had passed a 
fresh thought suddenly occurred to him. So, noise- 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 29 

lessly, he followed the passer-by in the direction of 
the station. The man, however, did not go to the 
railway, but at a short distance from it he drew back 
into a hedge, in order, no doubt, to wait for the first 
train in the morning. 

Geoffrey watched for a further half-hour, then with- 
drew and hastened to the wireless station, whence he 
called up a friend of his named Hemmington, who 
lived in Hampstead, and had an amateur wireless 
station there. 

He had not repeated the amateur's call-signal three 
times before he received an answering signal, after 
which his hand rapidly tapped the keys. Then a few 
seconds later he received the signal, “ O.K." 

Afterwards he returned to the Beacon Hotel, arriving 
there just as the sleepy servants were astir. 

He breakfasted early, but scarcely had he finished 
when he was called by the waiter to the telephone. 

It was Sylvia who spoke. In a state of greatest 
agitation she told him that burglars had broken into 
the Hall in the early hours and had stolen her mother’s 
rope of pearls, worth over twenty thousand pounds, 
and also nearly the whole of Madame Valdavia's fine 
jewels, which she had worn at the fancy dress dinner. 

“ We are all horrified, Geoffrey," she went on. "Mr. 
Glover has just gone out in the car to tell the police. 
What can we do ? Can you come up here ? Mother 
wants to see you." 

"I'm awfully sorry,” was Falconer's reply. " Please 
excuse me, as I’m terribly busy to-day. But tell your 
mother, in strict secrecy, that I have a notion that she 
will get her pearls back again." 

" What do you mean, Geoffrey ? " asked the girl’s 
high-pitched voice. 

" ^^at I've said, Sylvia. Remain patient. I have 
to go up to town at once. I’ll telephone you again 
at two o'clock this afternoon. To-morrow I shall not 
be so busy on wireless, and I'll run down and see you 
all — and also meet Mr. Glover," he added with a laugh. 

" But— but " 


30 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


He only laughed, and put up the receiver. 

The truth was that, owing to Geoffrey’s message to 
the wireless amateur in Hampstead, the bucolic-looking 
individual from Crowborough had been detained by 
the police when he had stepped out of the early train 
at Victoria, and upon him there had been found the 
whole of the stolen property. 

Owing to what Geoffrey was able to disclose to the 
Criminal Investigation Department, a very curious 
state of things became revealed. 

It was found that the genial George Glover — who, 
by the way, was promptly arrested and subsequently 
extradited to Paris — ^was none other than the 
notorious Henry Harberson, head of a great gang of 
International crooks and and jewel thieves, who had 
recently established their temporary headquarters in 
London, and who had as receiver an old Dutchman at 
Utrecht named Van Hoover. 

Thanks to Falconer’s patient investigations, extending 
over a further period of some weeks, it was also rendered 
clear that Harberson had, with the latest refinement 
of criminality, actually established wireless communi- 
cation with each of the six members of his gang in 
England, by means of a very ingenious transmitter, 
the signals of which were unreadable save under certain 
conditions. A man named Jensen of Copenhagen had 
devised it, and that mysterious signal of four numerals 
had been sent out daily just before half-past seven in 
order to inform each member all was safe, and that no 
police inquiry was being made. 

The jewels had been stolen from Nassington Hall 
by the pretended wealthy man, whose oil interests 
in Roumania were bogus, and handed out of the conser- 
vatory window to a confederate from New Orleans 
named Blades, who was dressed for the occasion as 
a Sussex farmer. 

Both men, with two of their accomplices, who were 
found in possession of secret receiving sets, were sent 
over to France, and at the time of writing they are 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


31 

all serving long terms of imprisonment for three 
sensational jewel robberies committed there. 

Mrs. Beverley was, however, naturally delighted to 
be again in possession of her pearls, while in Geoffrey 
Falconer’s private laboratory there is to-day Harberson’s 
very up-to-date secret wireless set which the police 
seized at the pretty house which, as George Glover, 
he rented on the Thames, not far from Maidenhead. 
In construction it is, after all, only a variation upon 
a set previously devised in the research department 
at Chelmsford, yet there are two factors in it which, 
to Geoffrey, established a new theory, and which, as 
will later on be apparent, were destined to be of distinct 
advantage to him in his experiments and investigations 
into the romance of wireless. 


CHAPTER II 

THE VOICE FROM THE VOID 

One afternoon about a month after the curious Affair 
of the Secret Signal, while Geoffrey was busy con- 
ducting some experiment in the research laboratory at 
Chelmsford, a tall, well-dressed young foreigner entered, 
and advancing to where he was seated, placed his hand 
upon his shoulder. 

Well ! ” gasped Geoffrey starting, his face lighting 
with pleasure. “ Why, my dear Enrico ! Wherever 
have you sprung from ? ” 

They’ve sent me over from Coltano about some 
new apparatus, and I heard you were in here. I 
arrived in London a week ago,” explained the dark, 
smooth-haired young fellow, who was one of the engineers 
at the powerful wireless station belonging to the Italian 
Government, and whose messages, prefixed by the call- 
signal, I.C.L,” are so well-known to all wireless men. 

Enrico Rossi, the son of a distinguished Italian 
general, had spent many years in England. He had met 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


32 

Falconer during the war, when they had become fast 
friends. Rossi had been attached to the Intelligence 
Branch of the Italian Army, his duty being the inter- 
ception of enemy messages. Then, after peace, the 
young man had resumed his responsible post at the 
great wireless station in Tuscany. 

Falconer took off his head-’phones, and learning that 
his friend was returning to London at half-past five, 
agreed to accompany him, so that they might dine 
together at the club. 

This they did, and afterwards Geoffrey took his 
friend along to Mrs. Beverley’s in Upper Brook Street. 
He had often spoken of Enrico to Sylvia — hence he 
was anxious to introduce him. The South American 
widow was one of those many enthusiasts who 
had fallen beneath the lure of Italy, therefore both 
mother and daughter made the young man most 
welcome. 

We are thinking of going to Italy very soon, Mr. 
Rossi,” said Mrs. Beverley, in the course of their chat 
in the big, elegant drawing-room. ” It is five years 
since I was there.” 

” Oh if you come, please do not fail to let me know,” 
said the good-looking young fellow, whose elegance of 
manner was so t5^ically Italian. ” I am frequently 
at our wireless station at San Paolo, outside Rome, 
and no doubt you will go to the Eternal City.” 

” To Florence first, I think, mother,” Sylvia said. 
” I want to see the Pitti and the Ufhzi.” 

” Better still,” exclaimed Enrico. ” I am within 
a couple of hours of Firenze — or, as we call it — Firenze 
la Bella.” 

” We are beginning to know quite a lot about wireless 
through Mr. Falconer,” declared the popular South 
American hostess. ” It is all so intensely fascinating.” 

” Yes,” replied the young Italian in very good 
English. ” We are constantly making fresh discoveries. 
The most wonderful and important nowadays is, of 
course, telephony through space.” 

” We should have all been burned as wizards had 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 33 

we lived a few hundred years ago/' laughed Geoffrey. 

The world would have declared us capable of working 
miracles — heat, motion, light and sound — created out 
of nothing 1 ” 

The young men remained smoking until Geoffrey 
was compelled to scurry to catch his last train, while 
Enrico Rossi left him at Liverpool Street Station to 
go back to his hotel. 

ril be down at Chelmsford again to-morrow," 
he said on parting. "'We’ve got a lot of trouble with 
our five-kilowatt telephone set, and we want your 
people to help us out of it." 

" No doubt we can," laughed Geoffrey. " We can 
fit you up with most things in wireless at Chelmsford." 

" Right-0 ! " said the Italian. "I’ll be down in 
the morning. Buona notte ! " 

And he turned and left his friend as the train moved 
off. 

Now, on Geoffrey’s return home, he found the 
Professor busy writing in his study, at work on the great 
book which was to be the crowning distinction of his 
splendid career. 

The courtly old man put aside his pen, and filling his 
pipe, listened to his son’s account of the unexpected 
arrival of Enrico, of whom he had so often spoken 
since the war, and whose talents as a radio-engineer 
he always praised so highly. 

"I’ll ask him over to dine to-morrow night," said 
Geoffrey when at last they rose, for it was then past 
one o’clock in the morning, and the Professor was about 
to retire. 

Before going to bed, Geoffrey passed into the room 
which he had converted into an experimental laboratory. 
It was his habit — as is the habit of most wireless experi- 
menters — to switch on the aerial and listen for a few 
moments before going to bed. 

The long-distance traffic to and from America and 
Europe is always clearer and of greater interest in the 
small hours of the morning than in the daytime, for 
at night the electric waves carry farther, and are 
c 


34 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

converted into signals much louder and more distinct 
than during the hours of light. 

So he took up the telephones, drew down the aerial 
switch, thus connecting the high twin wires across 
the lawn to the instruments, and by means of another 
switch put into circuit his long-wave set — the apparatus 
upon which the chief high-power European stations 
were received. 

The first he heard was Moscow sending out its usual 
Bolshevik propaganda — of which nobody takes any 
notice — then, turning the condenser slowly, he heard 
Nantes sending to Budapest. Another slight turn 
and he listened to F.L.,” (the Eiffel Tower) transmit- 
ting upon its continuous wave — or C.W.,” as it is 
known to wireless men — to Sarajevo, in Bosnia, and 
at the same time Madrid was in communication with 
Poldhu, in Cornwall. 

Strange, indeed, is the medley of messages which 
flash through the ether in the starlight, unseen, unfelt, 
and undetected, save by the delicate apparatus with 
its row of little illuminated vacuum tubes such as 
Geoffrey Falconer had there before him. 

He was just about to lay dowm the telephone when, 
as he turned the knob of the condenser, he suddenly 
heard an unusual howl — the strong, high-pitched whistle 
of a continuous-wave valve. He knew by the sound 
that it was the wave of a wireless telephone, therefore 
he waited and listened. 

In a few seconds he heard a voice, deepj but not 
unmusical, exclaim in Italian with great clearness — 
almost as clear as that from the experimental telephone 
set at Chelmsford : 

Hulloa ! Hulloa I Hulloa ! I am calling I.C.I. ! 
Hulloa, I.C.I. 1 Can you hear me ? I.C.I. 1 I.C.I. ! 
the voice kept repeating, calling Coltano, in Italy. 

Geoffrey was greatly mystified. The note was 
quite clear and distinct, though the voice was apparently 
distorted. The modulation was a little faulty. But, 
as an expert, he knew the great difficulties of telephony 
without wires, and the thousand and one trivial things 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 35 

which are necessary for success. A loose terminal 
screw ; the disconnection of a single strand of wire no 
thicker than a human hair; a falling accumulator, 
or a soft valve, all too frequently undetectable, 
makes the difference between failure and success 

There was an interval of half a minute. 

The operator, whoever he was, who wanted Coltano, 
the station a thousand miles away from Essex, was no 
doubt making some adjustment. 

At last the voice came again with startling clearness. 

“ Hulloa ! Hulloa 1 Hulloa, Coltano ! Hulloa, 
I.C.I. ! Are you on duty, Nicola ? Hulloa, Nicola ! 
Nicola ? Nicola ? Or is it Tozzoni on duty ? Tozzoni ? 
Tozzoni ? Tanti saluti/' the voice continued. Listen, 
Nicola. Here is Enrico Rossi ! '' 

Falconer held his breath. The speech was weird, 
and quite unusual. 

Rossi calling I.C.I. — calling Nicola. Listen, 
Nicola, caro mio 1 Rossi speaking. Rossi speaking. 
Can you hear me ? continued the distorted voice. 

There was a pause. Then again over the carrier- 
wave of electricity ran the words : 

“ Listen, Coltano ! Listen, Nicola — or Tozzoni 1 
Both of you are my dear friends. Enrico speaking. 
I am in London — in London ! With Falconer, of 
Chelmsford. Can you hear that ? he shouted in a 
shriller voice. “ With Falconer, of Chelmsford ! You 
know him — ^both of you. Well, I’m over here in England. 
But I am not coming back to Italy. My message to you 
is that I am not returning. I have other plans in 
America.” 

Then there was another pause, during which Falcone 
listened, silent and breathless. 

” Nicola, caro mio ! I have other plans in America, 
so I shall not return to you. Tanti saluti, caro mio. 
Will you reply ? Please reply on six thousand five 
hundred metres. I will listen. Rossi, changing 
over ! ” 

Falconer strained his ears to listen to the reply to 
that amazing message sent by his friend whom, only 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


36 

two and a half hours before, he had left at Liverpool 
Street Station. 

But though Madrid, Poldhu, Leafield, Cleethorpes, 
and Aberdeen were busy to various European stations, 
he could detect no reply. For quite ten minutes he 
listened, until, suddenly, the powerful station at 
Leafield, near Oxford, sent out the words in Morse 
code : 

“ Understood — Rossi to Coltano. Good telephony. 
Cannot hear Coltano.*' 

Next second another station, which he took to be 
Aberdeen, sent a message : 

Have understood Rossi to Coltano. What is 
the mystery ? Have not heard Coltano’s reply. Waiting 
for Coltano.” 

But though the young experimenter listened intently 
the station in Central Italy remained silent. 

Suddenly, however, he heard the well-known note 
of the great Italian radio-station, which tapped out in 
Morse, after giving his call-signal, ” I.C.I.,** the letters 
” Q.R.A.” — ^the conventional sign for the question : 
” What is the name of your station ? ” 

To this there was no reply. Half-a-dozen times 
the request came from Italy, apparently for the name 
of the station working telephony, though even that was 
not clear. Yet, no doubt, a hundred pairs of ears were 
listening in England alone. At the moment several 
stations were jamming each other so badly that it 
became extremely difficult to pick out the words from 
Coltano. 

Again, with almost startling distinctness, the 
strong, continuous wave of electricity was heard in the 
telephones, and the same voice spoke : 

“This is 2.C.Q., calling I.C.I. Rossi speaking. 
Glad you got my message. Addio ! ” 

The voice with its foreign accent sounded to Geoffrey 
much like that of his friend, but being distorted, 
recognition was not easy. 

The whole circumstance was most puzzling, to say 
the least, and Geoffrey ascended to his room wondering 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 37 

not so much why Enrico had so suddenly made up his 
mind not to return to Italy as to the identity of the 
station from which he had transmitted that telephone 
message across Europe. 

The call-signal, “ 2.C.Q.,” showed it to be an experi- 
mental station, but he knew of none so powerful as to 
be able to transmit telephony to Central Italy. 

The whole affair was a complete enigma. 

Next day he awaited the arrival of his friend at 
Chelmsford, but though the hours passed, he did not 
appear. The following day went by, but he neither 
came nor wrote. The department at the works with 
which the station had been doing business was equally 
puzzled. He had ordered on behalf of the Coltano 
station a quantity of new apparatus for wireless tele- 
phony, and it was being constructed in all haste, yet 
though a whole week went by, he never returned to 
inspect it. 

To his friend, Frank Boyd, Falconer told the story 
of that mysterious telephone message in the night. 
At first Boyd hardly gave it credence, but it was 
corroborated by the operators at Poldhu, who had been 
on watch at the time. 

Well, we must find out who * 2.C.Q.' is. They 
have a list of experimenters and their call-signals at 
Marconi House," Boyd said. " Let’s ring up and see." 

They did, and the reply received was that the station, 
2.C.Q., belonged to a retired naval officer living near 
Epsom Downs, a man who had experimented in wireless 
for some years, but whose station was certainly not 
equipped for long-distance telephony. 

Next day Geoffrey came to London, and then went 
down to Epsom, full of eagerness to solve the mystery. 
The retired naval commander, a man named Kent, 
received him, but at once assured him that no telephony 
had been transmitted from there. He only possessed 
the ordinary amateur’s set, which he showed his visitor — 
a limited power of ten watts for continuous-wave 
transmission. His range of transmission was probably 
not more than over a ten-mile radius. 


38 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

" Have you any knowledge of a young Italian named 
Enrico Rossi ? '' asked Geoffrey, as he stood in Mr. 
Kent’s wireless room. 

" None whatever. To my knowledge I have never 
heard the name before,” was the reply. 

So Geoffrey was compelled to return to London, 
where, on arrival, he called at the hotel near Charing 
Cross which Enrico had given as his address, but to 
his surprise was informed at the bureau that no person 
of that name had been staying there 1 

Indeed, Falconer examined the register of visitors 
himself, but found no entry of the name of Rossi, 
either in the account-books of the hotel or the register 
which all visitors signed when engaging rooms. 

The mystery of Enrico’s disappearance was, in view 
of that remarkable wireless message, most curious. 
Why had the Italian used a false call-signal ? Again, 
from what station had he transmitted that message 
of farewell ? 

Having obtained permission. Falconer’s next action 
was to ask Coltano whether they had received the 
telephonic message from their engineer on the night 
in question. The message was sent from Poldhu, 
while Geoffrey himself, seated at Chelmsford, listened 
on the big aerial to its dispatch, and then, a quarter 
of an hour later, heard the reply, which read as follows : 

” Poldhu from Coltano. Understood your query. 
We have heard no telephony and received no message 
whatever from Enrico Rossi. Why do you ask ? 
Kindly reply. — ^Director Coltano Radio.” 

From that it was instantly plain that the message 
purporting to be sent to Coltano was upon a low-power 
set somewhere in the vicinity of London, and not, 
as Geojffrey had believed, upon apparatus which would 
transmit two thousand or more miles. The Admiralty 
wireless station at Cleethorpes heard it, and so had 
Aberdeen, but there was no proof that it had been 
heard outside Britain. 

The mystery increased hourly. The London police 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 39 

were informed, and inquiries were made concerning 
the missing Italian. 

To Sylvia, Geoffrey had told the whole story, and 
the girl had become keenly excited concerning the 
disappearance of the good-mannered young man, who 
was her lover’s friend. 

If I can help you, Geoffrey, I do hope you will 
allow me,” she urged. ” I believe the poor fellow 
has met with foul play, and if so, we ought to discover 
the culprits.” 

” That, I regret to say, is my suspicion,” was 
Falconer’s reply. ” I have a keen intuition that there 
is something very radically wrong somewhere. Why 
should he announce his departure for America ? ” 

” But he has not sailed, I suppose ? ” 

“ The police have been busy examining the list 
of sailings, but his name does not appear anyhere,” 
Geoffrey said. ” Again,” he went on, ” why should 
he deceive me as to where he was staying ? ” 

” I cannot think why he was not frank and open 
with you. What had he to fear ? ” Sylvia remarked. 

That’s just it ! Perhaps he went in fear of some- 
thing, and for that reason kept his whereabouts a 
secret,” said her lover as they stood together in the 
pretty morning-room looking out into Upper Brook 
Street. “ Anyhow it’s a mystery which I intend to 
solve — if possible,” he added. 

In order to try to solve it he obtained leave from 
the works, and travelled first to Pisa, the old marble- 
built city famous for its cathedral and leaning tower, 
and then on to Coltano. 

The director, a tall, dark-haired, rather handsome 
man, received him warmly in his private office attached 
to the long row of buildings which form the power- 
house and operating rooms of the station. 

When he heard the story, he exclaimed in Italian — 
a language which Geoffrey knew very well : 

” All this is most amazing — incredible ! ” he cried. 
” Signor Rossi was sent to Chelmsford to obtain certain 
new apparatus, and in his last report, ten days ago, he 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


40 

wrote that all was in hand, and that he hoped to 
be back in a fortnight’s tinxe. Why should he go to 
America ? ” asked the director, shruggng his shoulders 
significantly. “ I cannot believe it ! We can only 
leave it to the police. He has a brother iving in 
Firenze.” 

” Ah, yes I ” exclaimed Geoffrey. ” I have heard 
him speak of him. He is an advocate, I think.” 

” Yes. A very nice fellow. He lives in the Via 
Giotto.” 

” I will go and see him,” the young Englishman 
said, and that same night he left for the Lily City. 

Next day he called upon the advocate, and made 
inquiry regarding his brother. Signor Rossi, however, 
replied that he had heard nothing of him since his 
departure for London. 

Then Falconer retold the strange story of the amazing 
farewell message, and his subsequent disappearance. 

” Can you oSer any suggestion concerning the extra- 
ordinary precaution he took to mislead me as to where 
he was staying in London ? ” inquired Geoffrey. 

The advocate reflected. 

” He may have been in fear of some enemy or other.” 

” Then he had enemies ? ” asked the Englishman 
quickly. 

” Ah ! That I cannot tell. If he had, he never 
mentioned them to me.” 

” Neither did he to me,” Falconer said. ” But he 
was the last man in the world to have enemies, I should 
have thought. The police have taken up the inquiry, 
and one of the reasons I am here is to obtain his photo- 
graph — if you have one.” 

” Fortunately I have a recent one. He sent it to 
me from Rome six months ago,” answered Enrico’s 
brother, who produced from a drawer a good cabinet 
portrait. 

” Excellent I ” exclaimed Falconer. ” We will repro- 
duce it and circulate it as soon as I get back to London. 
Poor Enrico I There can be no doubt that he has 
fallen a victim of some very cleverly-conceived 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 41 


plot. 

it." 


I only hope I shall be successful in unravelling 


" I sincerely hope so too, signore," said the advocate, 
and later on Falconer left him, departing that same day 
for London, travelling by way of Milan and the Gothard. 

On opening the London newspaper, which he bought 
on Folkestone Pier when he landed, his eyes met a 
startling headline, and he sat in his corner seat in 
the boat- train, aghast as he read the amazing announce- 
ment. 

On the previous day, it was stated, three men from 
a well-known furniture depository went with the key 
to a flat in Longton Mansions, Bayswater, to remove 
the furniture into storage, its owner, Mrs. Priestley, 
having gone to Buenos Ayres for a year to join her 
husband, who had an appointment out there. 

On entering the flat, they first commenced removing 
the furniture from the drawing-room and dining- 
room. Then they cleared out two bedrooms, when 
one of the men, unlocking the door of a small boxroom, 
the key of which was in the door, was startled at finding 
a man huddled up inside ! A few seconds sufficed to 
show that he was dead — and had no doubt been dead 
some days ! 

At once the police had been called, care being taken 
to hide the gruesome discovery from other tenants 
of the flats. The body was brought out, and the 
detective-inspector of the Division, on seeing it, iden- 
tified the body as that of a young man named Enrico 
Rossi, an Italian engineer, who had been reported 
missing. The report concluded with the usual cryptic 
assurance that the police had the matter in hand. 

Geoffrey sat staggered. His worst fears were now 
realised. His friend Enrico had, no doubt, been done 
to death ! 


On arrival at Victoria Station, he drove at once to 
Scotland Yard, where he interviewed Superintendent 
Ransley, the same official with whom the affair of the 
Secret Signals had brought him into contact. And 


42 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

to him he gave the photograph of the dead man, which 
he had brought from Italy. 

Yes, Mr. Falconer, the whole circumstances are 
an enigma,” the superintendent told him as they sat 
together in the rather barely-furnished room. We are 
now in search of the woman named Priestley. Yet 
as far as I can gather, she is a most respectable lady. 
Her husband has recently obtained a post as vice- 
consul at San Cristobal, and she stored her furniture 
in order to join him.” 

'' But where is she now ? ” 

On her way to Buenos Ayres perhaps. I hope 
to know to-morrow if she has sailed.. But whether 
she has or not, we shall no doubt eventually find her.*' 
And arrest her ? ” 

Yes — providing the coroner’s jury bring in a verdict 
of wilful murder. And they must, for he was struck a 
heavy blow on the head by a piece of iron piping.” 

Later Falconer stood by the body of his friend, 
who was dressed just as he had been when they parted 
at Liverpool Street. Indeed he was still wearing his 
light overcoat, showing that he had been killed either 
on arrival at the flat or upon his departure. 

Naturally Geoffrey, was greatly perturbed, and eager 
to discover the woman in whose apartment Enrico 
had been assassinated. Next day the motive of the 
crime was established — robbery. His wallet was 
missing ! That he had carried one Geoffrey knew, 
because he had produced it to pay for his railway-fare 
from Chelmsford to London. It was a dark-red one, 
and seemed well-filled with Treasury notes. 

In due course, the inquest was held, and though 
Geoffrey gave evidence of identification, he refrained, 
at the suggestion of Superintendent Ransley, from 
telling the jury of that remarkable telephonic message 
of farewell to which he had listened. The jury returned 
their verdict, and left the police to solve the mystery 
and arrest the woman Priestley. 

But though they made every inquiry, no trace could 
be found of her. The firm of furniture removers stated 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 43 

that she had called one day and asked them to remove 
her furniture and store it, handed the key of the flat to 
the clerk, showed him a receipt for the last quarter’s 
rent, and gave him a cheque for fifty pounds on account. 
She told him that she was going abroad, and would 
probably be away for a year at least. A receipt was 
given, and the men, going to carry out the work of 
removal, made the sensational discovery. 

About a month went by. The body of poor Enrico 
had been buried at Geoffrey’s expense, and though the 
latter continued his research work at Chelmsford, his 
thoughts were ever centred upon the mysterious Mrs. 
Priestley. 

One day Superintendent Ransley received informa- 
tion that an Englishwoman named Priestley, who 
answered the description of the missing woman, was 
sta3dng at the Hotel des Indes at the Hague. A few 
hours later a detective-inspector armed with a request 
for arrest and extradition, left London on his way to 
Holland via Harwich, and six days later Mrs. Priestley 
was at Bow Street Police Station, where she was inter- 
rogated by Superintendent Ransley, who, of course, 
first cautioned her that whatever she might say would 
be taken down and might be used as evidence against her. 

The charge that she had been guilty of murdering 
Enrico Rossi had, it seemed, from the first staggered 
her. She had protested her innocence over and over 
again. 

You knew this Signor Enrico Rossi ? ” said the 
superintendent, looking up from the pocket-book in 
which he had been writing. 

Certainly I did — in Italy long ago,” was her reply. 
” I was bom in Italy, though my parents were English, 
and I first knew him in Ancona when quite a girl.” 

” He called to visit you at Longton Mansions ? ” 

” He wrote saying he would call, and asked me to 
name a day. But I was much engaged, and neglected 
to write to him. He, therefore, never visited me.” 

” Then how came he to be found murdered in your 
flat ? ” asked the superintendent coldly. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


44 

“ Ah ! That I cannot tell. It is a mystery.** 

*' Yes,’* grunted Ransley, “ I agree — it is 1 But it 
would not be a mystery if you told me the truth, Mrs. 
Priestley. You surely cannot expect us to give credence 
to your denial ? ** 

I have told the truth,** was the woman’s firm 
reply. I have never set eyes upon Enrico Rossi 
since a month before the war. I then met him in 
Pisa.” 

”*Was anyone else in your flat on the night in 
question ? ** 

” Nobody. My maid, Axford, had gone home to 
Taunton three days before.” 

” What time did you return home on that night ? ” 

” I had been to a dance, and it must have been 
nearly three o’clock before I got back. Now that I 
recollect, I am horrified to think that I actually slept 
in the flat within a few feet of the dead body of the 
man I had known so well.” 

” Yes,” remarked Ransley in his curious cold tone 
of disbelief. ” Quite naturally.” 

Then a few minutes later the woman who had denied 
all knowledge of the affair was sent back to her cell, 
and the superintendent gave orders for her to be brought 
before the magistrate next morning and charged with 
the murder of Enrico Rossi. 

This was done, and the evening newspapeis were 
full of the sensational affair, though, owing to certain 
circumstances, it was not deemed wise by the 
authorities to let the public know the exact problem. 
Hence the case was camouflaged. There were certain 
interests at stake which apparently puzzled even the 
Home Office. 

Eva Priestley, represented by a well-known Bow 
Street solicitor, who offered no defence, was remanded. 
Her husband was communicated with, but he knew 
nothing, and was, no doubt, astounded at the discovery, 
and mystified regarding the young man Rossi. 

A week later the prisoner, a tall, fair-haired woman, 
whose photograph, in due course, appeared in all the 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 45 

picture-papers, and whom readers of this present 
narrative must well remember under another name, 
was committed for trial at the Old Bailey upon the 
capital charge, the Public Prosecutor alleging that she 
had enticed the young fellow to her flat, and had 
murdered him for the contents of his wallet. 

Geoffrey Falconer agreed with Superintendent Ransley 
and with the eminent King’s Counsel who prosecuted. 
The admission of Mrs. Priestley that she and Enrico 
were old friends was surely most damning evidence. 

Not until several days after Mrs. Priestley had been 
sent for trial was a curious fact noticed concerning 
the blue serge jacket which poor Enrico wore at the 
time he lost his life. Inside the collar the tab, bearing 
the name of the tailor in Rome who had made the suit, 
had been hastily cut aside, and beneath it a slit had 
been made, apparently with a sharp knife. But 
whether this had been done during Rossi’s lifetime 
or after death could not be established. 

One of the strangest features of the affair, however, 
was that weird message by radio-telephone — a message 
spoken, no doubt, by one aware of the fact that Enrico 
had been done to death. The police inquiries, how- 
ever, failed to elicit any proof that the woman suspected 
of the crime had any connection with anybody 
acquainted with wireless, even in its most amateur form. 

Obsessed by the mystery, Geoffrey had many con- 
versations concerning it with Sylvia, who believed in 
Mrs. Priestley’s innocence notwithstanding the chain of 
circumstantial evidence and the fact that the body 
had been hidden in her flat. But if Mrs. Priestley 
had not murdered the young man, who had ? asked 
the Public Prosecutor. 

The day fixed for the trial of the alleged murderess 
was approaching, when one afternoon Geoffrey, re- 
visiting unexpectedly the scene of the tragedy as he 
had done several times, chanced to pass on the stairs 
a short, lean, white-haired little man who was ascending 
to the flat above. Their eyes met, and the old man, 
turning his head, quickened his pace. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


46 

Geofifrey recollected having met him before in those 
days when Venice was seriously threatened by the 
Austrian advance. His name was Nocera, and he was 
a banker in Venice — a man of considerable repute. 
Why, Geoffrey wondered, was he living at Longton 
Mansions ? 

Of the hall-porter he later on learnt that Mr. Nocera 
and his wife had occupied the flat above Mrs. Priestley's 
for about three months. They came from Italy and 
took it furnished. After a month they had as guest 
a Mr. Zuccari, described by the hall-porter as a tall, 
thin, athletic man, with a black moustache and very 
bald head, 

“ He was something of a mystery, and I was very 
glad when he left," the man declared. " One day, 
indeed, I found him trying the door of Mrs. Priestley’s 
flat with the latchkey of the flat above. I caught him 
unexpectedly, and he certainly did not like it, for three 
days later he left, and I haven’t seen him since.’’ 

" That’s curious,’’ Falconer remarked. " Very 
curious ! Was he really trying to get into her flat ? ’’ 

“ It seemed to me that he was. But, of course, my 
presence prevented him.’’ 

Later that evening Geoffrey related to Superintendent 
Ransley what he had learnt, but strangely enough the 
Venice banker and his wife left early next morning, 
taking with them two good-sized trunks. To the 
porter they remarked that they were going to Edin- 
burgh, but the man was pretty wide awake, and giving 
the taxi-driver a quiet hint, heard from him an hour 
later that he had driven them to Victoria, to the Con- 
tinental train. 

Quickly observation was kept upon the pair, and 
at Folkestone the passport which they presented as 
Italian subjects was declared by the passport officer 
to be out of order, a fact which necessitated them both 
returning to London, though quite unconscious that 
they were under suspicion. 

At the same time, after closely questioning the 
hall-porter, Superintendent Ransley gave instructions 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 47 

that active search should be made for the bald-headed 
guest who had been tampering with the lock of Mrs. 
Priestley’s flat. Then there was a further surprise, 
and Mrs. Priestley herself, questioned in prison, ad- 
mitted she knew the people in the flat above, 
and being Italians, they had once or twice visited her. 
At once the police, aided by Geoffrey, redoubled their 
efforts. Falconer being at last successful in obtaining 
a further piece of curious evidence. He had taken 
the key of Mrs. Priestley’s flat to a number of lock- 
smiths in order to ascertain if they had been asked 
to make a similar key, but in vain. Of a sudden, 
however, he recollected having seen a barrow full of 
old keys and rusty locks in Lower Marsh, Lambeth, 
and upon it a notice bearing the words : Keys cut 
at shortest notice.” 

To the owner of the barrow he showed the key. 
The man — an artist in his profession — examined it 
long and carefully, until he found scratched upon it 
in tiny figures a number. He referred to a book, and 
then replied : 

“Yes, I cut a duplicate of this for a tall, thin 
gentleman. He was a foreigner, I remember.” And 
he gave the date, three days before the disappearance 
of Enrico Rossi. 

This was a very valuable link in the chain of fresh 
evidence, and the police very wisely allowed the supposed 
Venice banker and his wife to leave for Paris, entirely 
unsuspicious of the fact that they were being closely 
watched. The day came for the trial of Mrs. Priestley, 
but it was postponed. 

Meanwhile two English detectives were in Paris 
watching Nocera and his wife, information from Venice 
concerning the “banker” having been the reverse of 
reassuring. 

Within three weeks Superintendent Ransley’s expec- 
tations were rewarded. The man Zuccari visited 
them at their hotel in the Rue Castiglione I 

From that moment Zuccari was never left, and four 


48 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

days later all three were arrested in the street near the 
Opera by six agents of the Stirete. 

Madame Nocera was released, but her husband, 
in order to save himself, made a statement to Inspector 
Peyron when taken to the bureau of police. In a great 
state of agitation he admitted that, while posing as a 
banker in Venice, the money he possessed belonged 
to the Austrian Government — in fact, he was the pay- 
master of the spies of Austria scattered through northern 
Italy during the war. He declared that he had had 
no hand whatever in the assassination of Enrico 
Rossi. 

The French police were, however, far from satisfied 
with this statement, and pressed him, under threats, 
for further information. It then became apparent 
that Nocera and Zuccari had quarrelled over their 
share of the spoils, and in the end Nocera explained 
the ingenious plot to Inspector Peyron and the two men 
from Scotland Yard. 

It had become known to Zuccari that Enrico Rossi 
was to be sent on business from the Coltano wireless 
station to England, and that he intended to call upon 
Mrs. Priestley, his old friend. The flat above the 
latter’s being to let furnished, the Noceras took it, 
and succeeded in cultivating friendly relations with 
the lady below. Then Zuccari arrived from Italy, 
and on one of his visits with Nocera to Mrs. Priestley, 
he succeeded in getting hold of the latchkey of the flat 
used by the servant. Of this he had a duplicate made 
in Lower Marsh, and then he waited in patience. 

Enrico arrived in London and wrote to Mrs. Priestley. 
She quite innocently mentioned this fact to Nocera, 
and said that she could not see him as she was going 
away. 

This was their opportunity. Entering the flat in 
Mrs. Priestley’s absence, Zuccari discovered Enrico’s 
letter, and his address at a small private hotel at 
Kensington. 

He ascertained that Mrs. Priestley would be out at 
a dance on a certain evening ; therefore he telegraphed 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 49 

in the lady’s name asking Enrico to call at half-past 
ten o’clock for supper. 

After leaving Falconer at Liverpool Street station, 
Enrico had therefore taken a taxi direct to Longton 
Mansions, where Zuccari was already in Mrs. Priestley’s 
flat awaiting him. On entering there the unsuspecting 
young Italian was struck down, his wallet taken and 
his jacket removed. From a little pocket behind the 
silk address-tab of the tailor. Something was extracted 
— a tiny book of thin India paper. 

That Something was of the greatest value to the 
murderer, and was the motive of the crime, for it 
contained the secret wireless code of the Italian Govern- 
ment, both military and diplomatic, and would be of 
inestimable value to the Austrians and Germans, even 
though peace had now been declared. 

Having secured that for which he had cunningly 
plotted, Zuccari had replaced the coat upon the inert 
body of the man he had beaten to death with a piece 
of iron piping, put on his overcoat, and then locked 
him in the small box-room, afterwards leaving the flat. 
Three hours or so later Mrs. Priestley returned, all 
unconscious of the tragedy, and slept there for the last 
night before her departure abroad. 

The London police, two days after the true facts 
had been ascertained in Paris and Mrs. Priestley had 
been released, visited the flat occupied by Nocera, 
for, on inquiry, they had elicited the fact that, as secret 
agent of Austria in Venice, he had had much technical 
instruction in the use of wireless. 

In the flat was found quite a powerful generating 
plant, with a very up-to-date telephone set, and a most in- 
genious aerial arrangement by which one could transmit 
upon quite a long wave-length. Why this had originally 
been installed was obscure, but it was believed to be 
one of the powerful secret sets used by German spies 
in London during the war. 

In any case, it was proved that the reason Enrico 
had not given his correct address was because he had 
apprehensions of some sinister attempt. It was also 

D 


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50 

proved that Zuccari had, after the tragedy, spoken into 
the microphone that weird message to which Geoffrey 
had listened, and which proved such a remarkable 
feature of the affair. The message of farewell had 
apparently been the curious fancy of the unscrupulous 
assassin. 

The stolen code-book was recovered three days after 
Zuccari’s arrest from his baggage at the left-luggage 
office at Brussels, whence it was his intention to convey 
it to Germany. The Italian Government, who had 
two years before issued warrants for the arrest of both 
Zuccari and the traitor Nocera, at once claimed their 
extradition, and both men are now serving a sentence 
of solitary confinement for life — a doom worse, indeed, 
than the gallows. 


CHAPTER III 

THE CALICO GLOVE 

Mrs. Beverley, who, on account of her reckless 
expenditure, had been nicknamed “ The Wild Widow 
by a certain set in Society, had gone up to Perthshire 
to join a gay house-party at a shooting lodge near 
Crieff, leaving Sylvia at home at Upper Brook Street. 

After the girl there was dangling a Peer of the Realm, 
twice her age, in the person of Viscount Hendlewycke, 
a penniless man, whose family tree ran back to the days 
of Richard Coeur de Lion, and who, in his youth, had 
been distinguished by his two appearances in the 
Divorce Court as co-respondent. 

Hendlewycke, with his bald head and his pretence 
to golf, was the best fish that Mrs. Beverley had 
captured as the prospective husband of Sylvia. 
Hendlewycke Castle, near Alnwick, in Northumberland, 
was a magnificent old place, now let by the Viscount's 
trustee in Bankruptcy to a Lancashire cotton-waste 
dealer who aspired to a baronetcy, and Mrs. Beverley, 


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51 

with her acuteness and her wealth, saw that she 
could easily reinstate “ Roddy," as he was known 
in society, providing he made Sylvia Lady Hendle- 
wycke. 

Such an event would be the crowning of her great 
social sunbitions in London. 

Sylvia, however, was not blind. Neither was 
Geo^rey Falconer. Geoffrey had met " Roddy " 
several times. In him the young man found a degen- 
erate rouiy who, having run through his fortune, had also 
so lost his self-respect that he would borrow a “ fiver " 
from all and sundry, and in most cases forget to pay it 
back. Of club and hotel servants he had been driven 
to borrow money, and to a dozen butlers in country 
houses he was indebted for “just a couple of quid for 
my railway fare. Ill send it back to you when I get 
up to town," 

To men at White’s, the Wellington, Wells’, the 
Devonshire, and Boodles, “Roddy" Hendlewycke 
was known as “ a bad egg." Why “ The Wild Widow " 
from Argentina had taken him under her wing, nobody 
could imagine — except, of course, she wanted an old 
title for her daughter. 

Sylvia was compelled to tolerate him in order not 
openly to offend her mother, but she was heartily sick 
of him, and was seen as little as possible in his company. 
With Geoffrey she was perfectly frank, and they 
entirely understood each other. Therefore, it was 
not at all surprising that one day, her mother being 
absent, she suggested to the young man that he should 
drive her out for the day in her mother’s big cream- 
coloured Rolls-Royce. 

The suggestion was at once adopted, and on the 
Saturday morning the pair left London for a day’s 
outing. 

The car had scarcely left the garage at the rear of 
South Audley Street, where, with others belonging to 
people in the neighbourhood, it was kept, when a well- 
dressed man of about forty entered the yard and 
approaching the man in charge, exclaimed : 


52 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

I see Mrs. Beverley’s Royce has just gone out. 
Did you get to know what I want ? ” 

Yes, sir,” replied the man. ” Young Mr. Falconer 
is driving Miss Beverley down to Hastings. They’re 
lunching at the Queen’s.” 

” You’re sure ? ” 

” Quite sure, sir,” was the reply, whereupon the 
stranger placed a Treasury note into the hand of his 
informant. 

Then, re-entering a taxi in which he had been seated, 
apparently watching Falconer drive out Mrs. Beverley’s 
car, he sped along to a garage in Knightsbridge, where 
another large open car awaited him, and even before 
Sylvia and her lover had left Upper Brook Street the 
mysterious watcher was well on his way out of 
London. 

The day was a lovely one in early autumn, and the 
drive through Kent was delightful. Geoffrey and 
Sylvia came along the sea-front at St. Leonard’s just 
before noon, and, continuing, pulled up at the back 
entrance of the Queen’s Hotel, where they ordered lunch. 
Then, after a wash, they strolled out into the autumn 
sunshine beside the sea. 

As they left by that door with its wide glass porch 
which leads out upon the terrace before the sea, they 
passed a man seated in one of the wicker lounge chairs, 
smoking a good cigar. 

He was the mysterious individual who had been so 
keen to ascertain the destination of the pair. But 
as they passed he was gazing thoughtfully out upon 
the sea, taking no notice of them. 

After they had gone along towards the Pier, he returned 
to the lounge, where he scribbled a telegram. Having 
done so, he apparently desired to alter it, so he tore it 
into tiny fragments, half of which he tossed into the 
waste-paper basket, and the other half he placed in 
the pocket of his grey tweed jacket. That action showed 
him first to be a man of method, and secondly that 
the message was one which he did not wish to be read 
by anyone who might perhaps be watching. 


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53 

He wrote a second telegram, and that he took across 
to the post-office and dispatched. 

Later, when Geoffrey and Sylvia, having eaten their 
luncheon in the big upstairs room, had descended to 
the little lounge on the terrace to take their coffee, 
they found the same man there, smoking a cigar in the 
same abstracted manner. 

Coffee was brought to the pair who were chattering 
merrily, when the stranger, suddenly rising to pass 
back into the lounge, struck the little table accidentally 
and the coffee was spilled. 

“ Oh ! he exclaimed, with exquisite politeness, in 
a well-modulated and refined voice. “ Do please 
forgive me ! It was most clumsy of me, and I apologise 
to you both." 

Then seeing the waiter in the vicinity, he ordered 
two more coffees in the same breath. 

" Nothing ! " laughed Falconer. " It was only an 
accident ! These tables are all gingerbread things. 
They are always very shaky." 

" Well," said the stranger, " my sole consolation is 
that none of it went on the lady's dress. Coffee stains 
badly, you know." 

"No. It’s quite all right ! " declared Sylvia 
pleasantly. 

And then they began to chat. The stranger told 
them that he had motored down from London just for 
a breath of air. 

"I'm going abroad — ^to China — in about a month’s 
time. I expect to be away several years. So I want 
to see all I can of our dear old England before I go.” 

For half an hour they gossiped of motors, of good 
and indifferent roads, and of hotels as known by motorists 
within a couple of hundred miles of London. 

At half-past three Sylvia suggested they should 
start back home ; therefore, they parted from their 
pleasant chance acquaintance, leaving him still smoking 
in the porch-like lounge. 

" I somehow don’t like that man, Geoffrey," the 
girl said as soon as she was seated beside him and the 


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54 

car turned out into the busy Hastings street. He 
seemed so inquisitive.” 

” I thought so, too. But probably he wanted to 
know who we were,” laughed Falconer. ” Though 
he got no change out of me.” 

” Did you notice that he wore, even at lunch, a glove 
upon his left hand ? I think it is to cover some de- 
formity. It seemed to be of unbleached calico, and 
covered with some kind of flesh-coloured paint.” 

“Yes. I noticed it. But by his manner and speech 
he seems a gentleman — ^and a thorough cosmopolitan, 
without a doubt. He has apparently been half over 
the world,” he replied, and then the conversation 
dropped as he quickened speed to overtake a tram-car. 

That same night the stranger, who wore the flesh- 
coloured calico glove, attired in a dinner-jacket, lounged 
about the entrance-hall of the Piccadilly Grill for about 
a quarter of an hour, until at last he was joined by the 
person for whom he had been waiting, a smartly-dressed 
French girl, who possessed all the Me and mannerisms 
of the true Parisienne. Having left her cloak, the 
pair went in and dined at a table a deux, which had been 
reserved for them in a corner. 

The waiter, apparently knowing them both as regular 
patrons of the place, served them well. Over the table 
the man in a low tone related the coffee incident at 
Hastings, and the girl seemed to regard the adventure 
as huge fun. 

“ Oh ! Teddy, I do wish I had been with you I ” 
the girl said in rather broken English. Mon Dieu! 
IVe had a dull, miserable day ! I went up to Hamp- 
stead to see George, but he has gone away, and his 
landlady says she has no idea when he will be back.” 

“That’s sudden,” exclaimed the man, knitting his 
brows. “ I wonder if anything has happened ? George 
was not due to leave London till next Saturday morning 
— and then he was going over to Stockholm on a very 
important little bit of business. I arranged it all 
only yesterday. And now he’s gone ! ” 

“ Yes. And the old woman did not seem to know 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 55 

anything. Mr. Jordon had, she said, left very hurriedly 
with only a suit-case. And he left no message either 
for you or for myself.” 

“ Looks a bit fishy, Gabrielle,” the man remarked, 
staring at the tablecloth. 

“No. There’s no fear, my dear Teddy,” laughed 
the girl. “ If anything were wrong we should know. 
Bad news travels fast,” 

“ I don’t like George Jordon leaving suddenly like 
that — ^without a word. The other business in Stock- 
holm is a pretty big one.” 

“ Why did you fix Saturday ? ” 

“ I fixed any Saturday — the Saturday when we may 
find it most convenient to all parties concerned,” he 
said with a mysterious grin. 

“ I hope neither Falconer not the girl suspects,” 
the girl said apprehensively. 

“ What can they suspect ? ” asked the man. “You 
have only to carry out your part of the contract, and 
the whole thing is easy — big money awaits both of us,'* 
he whispered across the table. 

“Yes,” the girl replied, her voice lost in the strains 
of the orchestra. She looked across the spacious 
restaurant dreamily. “Yes,” she repeated, “ but 
somehow I don’t like this business at all. George 
may have smelt a rat and bolted.” 

“ He may have done, but, recollect, he would not 
have disappeared without first sending me warning. 
Remember all that it means to him — and to us both,” 
exclaimed the man who was known in the haunts about 
Piccadilly Circus as Teddy Tressider, or Everard, as 
was his real name. 

“ On any Saturday,” repeated the pretty young 
French girl, as she sipped her wine and then leaned 
her bare elbows upon the table, looking straight at the 
man before her. “ George has arranged to be ready 
to get across to Sweden, on any Saturday — eh ? ” 

“ Exactly. And look here, Gabrielle 1 ” exclaimed 
the keen-eyed man, whose attitude suddenly altered 
to one of menace, “ I don’t want you at the last moment 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


56 

to become chicken-hearted or — or, by Heaven 1 if 
there's a failure, you'll pay dearly for it." 

The girl remained silent. The expression upon 
her face showed that she resented the man's threat. 
Her delicate lips compressed, and her dark eyes flashed 
back at him viciously. But she was a clever girl, 
for at that moment of her anger rising she controlled 
her tongue, and, instead of expressing any resentment, 
she only gave vent to a half-idiotic laugh, and after a 
pause lifted her glass again, and answered : 

" Really, my dear Teddy, you are very funny to-night. 
Come back to earth, my dear friend ! " 

The man with the calico glove snapped a word in 
reply and ordered liqueurs, after which he took her in 
a taxi to a big dancing-hall out at Hammersmith, 
where, after a number of dances, they parted upon 
the kerb outside. 

" Remember, Gabrielle, if you fail me in this. I'll 
tell what I know. And you surely fully realise where 
you will be," he said distinctly in her ear as they awaited 
a taxi. " I have no wish for us to be enemies. But, 
gad ! if you hold back, then I shall treat you as an 
enemy, and I shall tell all I know.'- 

The girl drew a long breath. 

" You — you ! " 

But the words died upon her lips. With her woman's 
innate cleverness she made resolution at that moment 
that she would combat the plans of the man who held 
her future in his hands. 

She recollected all the past, and she shuddered. 

Next second, however, she laughed saucily, and as 
the taxi drew up, she replied in French : 

" Oh ! my dear old friend, why make all this trouble ? 
You are very amusing to-night 1 This little affair will 
come out all right, never fear. Now that you know 
Monsieur Falconer, surely the trouble is half over ? 
The rest is so very easy. Discretion and caution are 
all that is necessary. And then, when the deed is done, 
George will slip over to Stockholm and every one will 
be happy — except Monsieur Falconer ! "- 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 57 

And she stepped into the taxi and drove away. 

About this time Geoffrey Falconer was busy each 
evening in devising improvements in his new seven- 
valve amplifier, with the object of applying for a patent. 
In the world of wireless there were many rumours that 
Falconer s improvement of the “ saturation device 
and other things would revolutionise the present method 
of the reception of wireless signals. \^at it exactly 
was only the clever young inventor himself knew. He 
had shown it to his father, and also to Sylvia, but 
they were not sufficiently acquainted with the mysteries 
of wireless to understand its true import. 

So busy was Geoffrey, both at the Works at Chelms- 
ford, and at his own home each evening, that during 
the fortnight that followed he only went to London 
once, to do business at Marconi House and afterwards 
to see Sylvia. 

That evening, Mrs. Beverley being out of town, he 
took her daughter out to dinner at the Carlton, and 
afterwards to the theatre. During the entracte he left 
her in the stalls while he went out to smoke a cigarette. 
He chanced to be standing in the crowded lounge 
when suddenly he saw a young man named Hugh Carew, 
who had been a brother-officer with him in France. 
With him was a pretty, smartly-dressed girl with dark 
hair and wonderful eyes, and wearing a dress of 
emerald green. 

Carew greeted his friend warmly, and then, turning 
to his companion, said : 

** Let me introduce you to Mr. Falconer — 
Mademoiselle Juvanon.'" 

The girl started, held her breath, glanced furtively 
into Falconer’s face, and then expressed in French 
her great pleasure at meeting her companion's brother- 
officer. 

As for Geoffrey he said but little. After a few 
moments' conversation, however, Carew excused him- 
self, saying that he wanted to get a drink, and begged 
Falconer to look after the girl for a moment. 


58 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

The instant he had gone to the bar, Falconer bent 
to the girl, and in a low, hard voice, said in French : 

“ When last I had the pleasure of meeting 
mademoiselle, both her nationality and her name 
were — ^well — slightly different — eh ? 

From her pretty lips rang out a ripple of merry 
laughter, while over her face spread a saucy look. 

“ I freely admit it, M’sieur Falconer,'* she responded 

But I had no idea we should meet here. Or I should 
not have come — I confess to you." 

" Ah ! Mademoiselle, beauty such as yours cannot 
be concealed," said the young man laughing. 

" Why do you flatter me ? — ^You ? " 

" Surely I may be permitted to admire you — even 
though I am aware of the truth — of who and what you 
really are ! " 

" But — ^but you will not give me away to Hugh — 
will you, M’sieur Geoffrey ? " she asked quickly, her 
face instantly pale in alarm. " I — I love him. I 
swear I do ! ” 

" If you play the straight game with him, GabrieUe, 
I will remain silent," Falconer promised. "After we 
had met in Paris three years ago, I learnt the truth 
about you, mademoiselle," he added ; " and I confess 
that the revelation was an extremely unpleasant one. 
I believed in you, but I found that you were playing 
a very crooked game." 

As the words left his lips, Hugh Carew returned. 
The curtain had rung up, therefore Geoffrey bowed to 
mademoiselle, and at once rejoined Sylvia. 

The remainder of the play did not interest him. 
As he sat by Sylvia’s side a flood of bitter memories 
overtook him — ^how he had first been introduced to 
Gabrielle while taking a morning aperatif at the Pre 
Catalan, in Paris ; of his friendship with her, and of 
the subsequent discovery that, instead of being what 
she had represented herself to be, she was actually 
the decoy of thieves I In Paris he had known her as 
Gabrielle Valeri, a native of Palermo, in Sicily. Now 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 59 

that she was in London, the friend of Hugh Carew, her 
name had become Juvanon, and she was French. 

What deep game was being played ? 

He made a point of finding Carew at his club three 
days later, when he turned the conversation to her. 
Hugh at once became enthusiastic. It was quite 
apparent that he was over head and ears in love with the 
pretty young French girl. He had, it seemed, first 
met her in Rouen during the war, and had again 
encountered her six months ago by pure accident while 
walking along Kensington High Street. To a man in 
love it is useless to give warning, and Falconer, realising 
this, hesitated to say anything to the girls detriment. 

He had warned her in all seriousness that if she 
played a crooked game he would expose her. And he 
now recollected that the expression in her eyes when she 
had confessed her love for Hugh was one of true honesty 
and frankness. 

Carew was, of course, in entire ignorance that his 
friend was acquainted with the girl whose beauty had 
cast a spell over him, and Geoffrey, on his part, remained 
silent. 

His interview over a whisky-and-soda at the 
Wellington Club that afternoon proved that the pair 
were genuinely in love with each other. But Falconer, 
recollecting Gabrielle’s position, was wondering what 
could be behind it all. Hugh Carew was heir to a 
baronetcy, the elder son of a very wealthy man, and 
he wondered whether those mysterious international 
thieves behind Gabrielle were not scheming blackmail. 
Indeed, the future extortion of money seemed to be 
at the root of it all. 

That night, after calling at Upper Brook Street 
for half an hour, Geoffrey went back to Warley full of 
grave apprehensions concerning his brother-officer, 
and, before turning in, he sat down to further test his 
improved amplifier by which signals from both low and 
high-power stations came in with almost double strength. 

“ Hitherto there have been three grades of amplifiers,’' 
he muttered to himself, as he sat with the low-resistance 


6o 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


telephones over his ears. “ They have never yet 
invented an amplifying detector to cover all wave- 
lengths from three hundred to seventeen thousand. 
We constructed one which was equally effective on all 
commercial wave-lengths, but complications had to 
be introduced which rendered the instrument entirely 
unsuitable for ordinary practical use. Yet here I 
have, I hope, a device which increases the amplitude 
of the oscillations over all wave-lengths, both for 
' spark ’ or ‘ continuous waves.’ ” 

He listened on the telephones to the usual traf&c 
of the night. Many of the messages passing and 
re-passing across the Atlantic were in code — messages 
of mystery all of them. The rapidity of the exchange 
of communications by wireless — ^both private and 
commercial — ^has long out-distanced the old-fashioned 
cables, with their long delay and deliberate methods. 
Truly, the world is now beginning to realise that it can 
send messages across the seven seas and receive replies 
by wireless in half the time occupied by the submarine 
cables. 

Geoffrey remained with the telephones over his ears 
for quite an hour, making delicate adjustments here 
and there, his new instrument being so sensitive that 
he could hear many amateurs in London working on 
their ten watts and one hundred and eighty metres 
to which the General Post Office restricts them. Then 
he switched off and retired to bed. 

Four days went by — strenuous days — for at Chelms- 
ford important tests were being made upon the great 
high-power wireless telephone set with its huge panel 
with globular glass valves, each the size of a football — 
the set which the collective brains of the Marconi 
Company had devised in order to exchange actual 
speech with stations across the Atlantic. Geoffrey 
was one of the engineers engaged in these tests, hence 
he had little time for anything else. He snatched his 
lunch hastily each day in the comfortable upstairs 
dining-room of the heads of departments, and under 
the chief telephone engineer, whose clear, deliberate 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 6i 

voice is known to all wireless men, devoted every 
moment to his particular sphere in the perfection of 
the new apparatus which was to supersede the dot-and- 
dash of Morse’s invention. 

One evening, after leaving Chelmsford, he went on 
to London, and having dressed at the club, dined at 
Upper Brook Street. Mrs. Beverley was giving a 
small dance in honour of a French Minister of State 
and his wife, and Sylvia had pressed him to come. 
Hence he spent an enjoyable evening, in which the 
only jarring note was the presence of the ineffable 
Lord Hendlewycke, to whom, of course, Sylvia was 
forced to be polite. 

Falconer left Liverpool Street station by the last 
train, arriving home at about one o’clock in the morning. 
Contrary to his habit, he did not go into his wireless 
room, but went straight up to bed, for the Professor 
had already retired, and the old house was in darkness. 

At seven o’clock the next morning the maid, a 
country girl, rapped loudly upon his door, crying : 

“ Mr. Geoffrey ! The house has been broken into • 
Your wireless room is all in disorder ! ” 

Falconer sprang up, slipped on his dressing-gown, 
and dashed down. 

The room was turned upside down. The window 
had been forced and was open, so that whoever entered 
had had easy access to the place. No second glance 
was needed to show that whoever had entered had been 
there for one purpose only — ^in order to possess himself 
of the secret of the improved amplifier ! 

A number of wires had been disconnected, while on 
the table lay a piece of that paper ruled in small squares 
and used by engineers to draw diagrams. 

A diagram of the circuit had apparently been made, 
but as the instruments were still intact. Falconer was 
relieved to think that whoever had been prying about 
had been disturbed before he had had time to discover 
his secret. 

Upon the floor lay the telephone, discarded ; the 
aerial switch had been left down just as the intruder 


62 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


had listened, and several connections had been pulled 
away from the terminal screws. 

The person who had done it was, no doubt, some one 
skilled in wireless. That was apparent by the changing 
over of oue or two connections which only the eye of 
an expert would detect. That the intruder had been 
there through the hours of the night, and had gone 
deliberately into everything aided by his own expert 
knowledge was apparent. 

But Geoffrey smiled within himself. He knew 
that any intruder could not gain full knowledge of his 
device unless he had taken that small box which was 
attached to the amplifier. Whoever had been there 
had been prying about — but had been foiled ! 

He closed the window that had been forced open, 
and then set about replacing the wires which had been 
disconnected, making up the circuit to its original 
design. 

The Professor, who had been told that burglars 
had been in, entered the room excitedly, but Geoffrey 
reassured him. 

“ Somebody has been pottering about here. Lots 
of people know of my device, and I suppose somebody 
is out to try to discover it. But they haven’t done so. 
They’ve made a horrible mess of things, but they don’t 
know the whole truth, because they haven’t examined 
the new saturation device. If they had taken that 
away they would have found out everything.” 

” Very fortunate, Geoff ! ” exclaimed the old Professor. 
” Most fortunate ! Evidently some person wants to 
filch your invention from you ! ” 

” Of course. But they don’t seem to have done 

it — unless ? ” And the young man crossed 

eagerly to a big cupboard in the room, the door of 
which stood unlocked. 

From it he withdrew a small, green -enamelled, steel 
dispatch-box. 

” By Heavens I ” he gasped. They’ve got it I ” 
And his father saw that the box had been ripped open. 

” I kept the diagram and specification of the windings 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 63 

in there ! " Geoffrey cried in dismay. “And they 
have taken it. They know everything — and it is 
not patented 1 “ 

“ But who are the thieves ? “ queried the old man. 
“ Who could come here into this house, and deliberately 
steal your invention ? “ 

“ Ah ! There are hundreds of unscrupulous persons 
who have heard of it. They know how much it would 
be worth to the world in the near future, and I can 
only suppose that some plot has been formed to secure 
it. And they’ve been successful ! They have abstracted 
the diagram from that box which I believed to be 
practically thief-proof. It had a complicated lock, 
but they have opened it with steel cutters.” 

“ So the thieves know your secret, Geoff — the secret 
which you have been so long perfecting ? ” 

“ Yes, they do,” replied the young engineer, setting 
his jaws firmly. “ They have outwitted me ! And 
instead of being a rich man, as I had anticipated, I 
am just where I was ! I did my best to secure to the 
world a better mode of amplification of wireless signals, 
but they have stolen my invention. Stolen it ! ” 

And he stared wildly at his father as a man desperate. 

An hour later Geoffrey was in the office of the Chief 
Constable of Essex, and there related to him the whole 
circumstances. Two detectives went over to Warley 
in a car, and examined the premises. That entry 
had been made in a very ingenious manner was quite 
clear, and it was equally clear that the object was 
solely to get sight of the improved amplifier, and to 
secure the diagrams and specifications for which Geoffrey 
was about to apply for patent rights. 

There was no clue to the thief, but whoever it was 
certainly knew something of wireless. No ordinary 
burglar had committed the theft. 

The examination of the room by the police took 
place at about eleven o’clock, but at five that evening 
a sensational discovery was made by a farm labourer 
near Ardleigh Green, about two miles away on the 
Romford Road, The man was on his way home from 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


64 

work when, crossing a field near the high road, he came 
across the body of a well-dressed man. 

He was startled to find that he was dead — ^having 
been shot in the chest. 

At once he informed the Romford police by telephone, 
and they, on examining the body, declared it to be a 
case of murder. 

Late that night, after Falconer had returned from 
Chelmsford, he received a visit from a police inspector 
from Romford, who produced some documents. 

These," he said, “ we found on the body of the 
stranger who was apparently murdered last night. 
They appear to us to be wireless diagrams, and we wonder 
if they may, by any chance, be yours ? " 

Geoffrey seized them eagerly. 

" By Jove ! " he gasped. “ Why they’re mine — 
the stolen plans of my invention ! ’’ 

" Then it seems as though the thief, after com- 
mitting the robbery, was murdered," the inspector 
said. 

"So it appears. But who can he be — and who 
killed him ? " 

" That’s what we’ve got to find out, sir. Perhaps 
you’ll come into Romford with me and view the body ? 
You may know the man. He seems well-dressed, 
and we found on him about forty pounds in Treasury 
notes and several letters. But none of the latter give 
any clue as to who he may be. The envelopes have 
all been destroyed." 

An hour later Geoffrey Falconer was shown the body 
as it lay, pale and still, awaiting the coroner’s inquiry. 

" Why, I recognise him ! " gasped the young engineer 
the moment his eyes fell upon the dead man’s face. 
" That’s a man with whom I chatted at the Queen's 
Hotel, at Hastings, some weeks ago. I remember his 
face quite well. And his hand. He is still wearing 
that flesh-coloured calico glove ! ’’ 

" Was he alone ? ’’ asked the police inspector. 

" Yes, as far as I know," Geoffrey replied, and then 
in a flash it occurred to him how the stranger, now 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 65 

dead, had managed to strike up a conversation by 
the overturning of the coffee. He recollected, too, 
Sylvia's instinctive dislike of the fellow. 

But if the mysterious man had evil intentions, why 
should he have taken all those pains to meet him ? 

In any case he had the satisfaction of having regained 
possession of his precious diagram which in the night 
had been filched from his dispatch-box. 

He was shown the Treasury notes found in the dead 
man's wallet, and also the letters — four of them — all 
in a woman’s hand. They were in French, dated simply 
from Mario tte, a little village on the edge of the Forest 
of Fontainebleau, cold, purely formal letters, but 
signed “ Gabrielle." 

Geoffrey Falconer knew that signature ! He 
possessed letters in the same handwriting. The 
writer was the pretty decoy of thieves, the girl who 
was now in love with his brother-officer, Hugh Carew. 

The whole situation became intensely puzzling. 
The man, whoever he was, had evidently stolen the 
diagrams, but on making his way to Romford station 
had been waylaid and shot by an unknown hand. 
That was the theory held by Geoffrey, and also by the 
police. The motive of the theft was, no doubt, in 
order to sell the invention abroad to some rival radio 
company in Germany, or in America, for new wireless 
devices have always a ready market to the rich cor- 
porations who — after the Marconi Company — attempt 
to control the world’s communications through space. 

Very naturally Geoffrey did his level best to keep 
out of the papers what really had been stolen from his 
father’s house. There were several interests at stake. 
Hence, in the newspapers, the world read that the thief 
had abstracted certain papers ” from the Professor’s 
house, and these were found upon the dead man by 
the police, and returned to their owner. 

Those who read these lines will, no doubt, recollect 
having read a bald and very unconvincing report of 
the affair. They certainly never dreamed of the drama 
and romance which lay behind it all. 

E 


66 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

At the inquest Geoffrey Falconer, who was called 
to identify his property,'" and tell the court of his 
meeting with the deceased at Hastings, was very guarded 
in his evidence. He, of course, said nothing of the 
pretty young girl whom he had met in Paris as an 
Italian, and who was now in London under another 
name and posing as French. The letters signed 
‘‘Gabrielle " were shown to the jury, but to them 
they conveyed nothing. The twelve worthy tradesmen 
of Romford had no suspicion whatever that Gabrielle 
was a decoy of a clever thief, the man into the circum- 
stances of whose death they were called upon to inquire. 

Who had killed the thief there was no evidence 
whatever to show. As far as Geoffrey was concerned 
he had little interest in the matter. The man had 
taken a great risk, but had failed to dispose of the 
diagrams, and thus filch from him a very considerable 
sum. That the stranger’s death was due to vengeance 
seemed quite feasible, and the jury could only arrive at 
one conclusion in face of the fact that no weapon had 
been found near the spot — ^namely, that wilful murder 
had been committed by some person or persons 
unknown.” 

Next day the diagrams of the improved amplifier 
were placed in the bank, and the body of the deceased 
was buried at the expense of the county of Essex. 

The affair, however, filled Geoffrey’s mind mainly 
because of the pretty Gabrieli e’s association with his 
friend Carew. 

Though he remained silent, the suggestion occurred 
to him about ten days afterwards to go to London 
and meet Carew. 

On calling at the club he found Hugh in the smoking- 
room, and at once it became apparent that his appear- 
ance was the reverse of welcome. 

Carew seemed highly nervous and perturbed. They 
sat over their cigarettes for half an hour chatting over 
trivialities, when Geoffrey suddenly remarked : 

” I suppose you read in the papers what a lot of 
trouble I’ve had — ^a robbery at our house ? ” 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


67 

'' Yes/* his friend replied, ** I — I*ve got an appoint- 
ment out in South Africa, Geoffrey, but — ^but before 
I go I want to tell you something/’ 

What ? '* asked his friend. 

** Come upstairs to the private room,” said Carew, 
and both ascended the great old staircase, and passing 
along a corridor, entered a small rather ill-lit room 
where private conversation between members could 
be indulged in. 

When Hugh Carew had closed the door, he faced 
his friend, and said in a low, tremulous voice t 

” An explanation is due to you, Geoffrey. I know 
that you must have been much mystified over the 
occurrence at Warley, and the narrow escape you 
had of your invention passing into the hands of 
foreigners. I confess that I prevented it.” 

You 1 How ? ” 

Well, I discovered that Gabrielle was held beneath 
the thrall of that blackguard, Edward Everard, a thief 
of the most unscrupulous type where women were 
concerned. The girl confessed to me. She told me 
how she had been compelled to aid him in his plans 
in Paris and elsewhere, and how Everard was plotting 
to obtain the secret of your wireless invention in order 
to dispose of it to some people in Brussels. I induced 
her to tell me the whole plot — a most ingenious one — 
and then ” 

And he paused. 

” Yes, go on,” said Geoffrey, looking into the other’s 
pale, hard-drawn face. 

” Well — I followed him on that night,” he said in a 
low, intense voice. ” I watched him break into your 
room and cut open the dispatch-box. I saw him 
leave and go along the road, and — and in order to save 
Gabrielle from him and save your invention from falling 
into the hands of others, I — I shot him I ” 

” You did ? ” gasped Falconer, astounded. 

” Yes. And now you can give me up to the police. 
I don’t care. I love Gabrielle, and I have saved her 


6S 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


from that fiend who wore a glove to conceal a deformity 
by which he could have been easily identified/' 

" Where is Gabrielle now ? " 

“She sailed for Cape Town last Tuesday, and will 
await me there. We arranged to be married on my 
arrival." 

Falconer paused. A long silence fell between the 
two men. 

At last Geoffrey spoke, his voice trembling with 
emotion : 

“ Go and meet her in Cape Town, Hugh. I shall 
regard your confession as sacred. You saved the 
girl from further dishonour, and you saved to me the 
fruits of my labours. It was murder, I admit. But 
now that I know the dead man’s name, I am aware 
that he was guilty of the same crime — the robbery 
and murder of a wealthy old lady near Marseilles two 
years ago — a woman to whom he had forced Gabrielle 
to act as maid." 

“ And you will say nothing — ^not a word will pass 
your lips ? " asked Hugh Carew eagerly. 

“ Not a word — I swear ! The man has met with 
his just deserts." 

“ Thank you, Geoffrey," was the other’s reply, 
and both left the dull, half-dark room without further 
word. 


CHAPTER IV 

THE devil’s oven 

The calm summer morning broke gloriously over the 
entrance to the English Channel between Land’s End 
and the Lizard. The sea was blue, with only a faint 
ripple. 

Mrs. Beverley had been induced by Geoffrey to leave 
Upper Brook Street to spend a few weeks in Cornwall, 
taking Sylvia with her. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 69 

Indeed, it was Sylvia who pressed her mother to 
go to Cornwall because Geoffrey was compelled to go 
down to the Marconi wireless station at Poldhu, near 
Mullion, where some alterations were being carried 
out. 

The widow and her daughter had, three days before, 
taken up their quarters at the Poldhu Hotel, which 
is situated high upon the cliff within a stone's throw of 
the high-power wireless station, which, at stated times 
by day and by night, transmits messages to ships across 
the Atlantic. Geoffrey had also taken up his quarters 
there, and from the hotel windows a wide and beautifal 
view could be obtained of the rugged Cornish coast, 
the picturesque Poldhu Cove and the wild Halzaphron 
Cliff standing out to sea, a rough granite headland. 

Being summer, the hotel was full. The crowd was 
of a refined class the blatant profiteer with his 
bejewelled wife being happily absent. In the grounds 
of the hotel was a path which led to a small gate whereon 
was a notice — “ Private. No Admittance " — the 
entrance to the wireless station. Beyond that gate 
no person was allowed to go, save by special authority 
from the head office at Marconi House, though most 
of the summer visitors longed to pass beyond and 
learn the secrets of that wonderful station — the first 
that Senatore Marconi established for communication 
with America. 

Geoffrey had breakfasted at sever, and had crossed 
to the long, low-built buildings situate beneath those 
high, spidery aerial wires, with their tall, slender masts 
which withstand so well the fierce winter gales of the 
Atlantic. There for over an hour he had been busy 
making some adjustments upon the new eight-kilowatt 
wireless telephone which was being set up for the 
transmission of speech to Madrid. Then, at last, 
he had emerged from the power-house and walked 
along the gravelled path in the direction of the hotel, 
for he knew that Sylvia, after breakfasting with her 
mother, would be outside to enjoy the morning 
sunshine. 


JO TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

He was not long before he caught sight of her, a 
fresh, smiling figure in a summer blouse and cream 
serge skirt. She wore no hat, and in her face showed 
that health given by the sunshine and sea air. 

“ Hulloa, Geof ! " she cried as she met the young 
fellow. “ Up and busy already ? " 

Yes," he answered. “ We’re still troubled over 
the set. Can’t get it working properly yet.’’ 

" WhaCs going on just now ? the girl asked, for 
during the three days she had been there she had been 
an unofficially privileged visitor to the wireless station 
on account of her friendship with Falconer. She 
had begun to know some of the routine of the traffic. 

Her lover glanced at his watch. 

"Just twenty past nine," he remarked. * In ten 
minutes they will be sending the Admiralty weather 
forecast to the ships. Come over and watch it going 
out," he suggested;, and, as she at once agreed, he turned 
back with her. 

Already, as they approached, they could hear the 
dull roar of huge dynamos set in motion to test in 
preparation for the powerful spark transmission, and 
as they passed into the power-room, Geoffrey said : 

"You’d better hold your fingers in your ears when 
they try the spark. Come, let’s have a look at the 
Devil’s Oven.’’ 

And he conducted her past a number of huge 
condensers made of glass plates, and complicated 
looking machinery, to a big chamber built of brick, like 
a baker’s oven, through which all the messages passed 
out. 

The door was open, and inside she saw a big rotary 
disc with copper points which the busy, bustling engineer 
in charge was examining prior to its use. 

" Why is it called the ‘ Devil’s Oven ’ ? ’’ asked 
the girl. 

" Wait — and you’ll see,’’ he laughed, introducing 
her to the engineer, who was at work with his eye upon 
the clock, for at all hazards each day the forecast has 
to go out to time. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 71 

The pair stood together watching, until, a few 
moments later, the engineer closed the door of the spark- 
chamber and passed along to the great switch-board. 

'‘You had better hold your fingers in your ears, 
Miss Beverley,’’ he said briskly, in passing. This she 
did, and a second later when he pulled over the big 
switch, a terrific noise was set up, almost enough to 
break the drums of the unaccustomed ear. Then, 
passing to a little room, the engineer rang a bell to the 
transmission -room in a building a little distance away. 

Next moment there came three short and one long 
crashes in the Devil’s Oven — electric discharges which 
showed blood-red through the square pane of glass 
in the door, though they were really intensely blue, 
while close by, upon a heavily insulated and protected 
plate, two great blue sparks were being quenched by 
a strong forced draught of air. 

Again three short crashes followed by one long — 
the letter “ V,” the testing letter of the alphabet. 

The engineer watched the spark, and at last, deciding 
that it was efficient to reach to every ship across the 
Atlantic and far north and south across land and sea 
for three thousand miles, went again to the little room 
and rang the bell to the operator signifying “ O.K.” 

Next moment the crashes in the Devil’s Oven became 
continuous as across the ocean there was sent forth 
the signal “ C.Q.” — the general call for all to listen — 
followed by the signal letters of Poldhu, “ M.P.D.,” and 
a message from the Admiralty telling captains of 
ships what weather they might expect for the next 
twenty-four hours, followed by a storm warning. 

So deafening were the heavy discharges that the 
girl was glad to get outside. 

“ Fancy ! ” she said. “ Every ship at sea is listening 
to the storm warning ! ” 

“ Yes,” he replied. “ Let us go and see it being 
sent by the key.” 

They crossed to a small building which was divided 
into two rooms. In one were the operators on the 
land telegraph line to Marconi House, and in the other 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


72 

sat the wireless operator, a smart-looking, dark-eyed 
man with the telephones over his ears, tapping out 
the message in silence, his chin resting upon his hand. 
There only a slight clicking could be heard, the actual 
discharge being effected by a relay. 

He was repeating the message he had at first sent, 
making, by dots and dashes, signals as set out by 
the message written down upon a form before him which 
had come over the land-wire from the Admiralty ten 
minutes previously. 

When he had finished, he rose and wished Sylvia 
good-moming, for they had met on the previous day. 

‘'I’m just off to bed. Miss Beverley,” he laughed. 
” I’ve been on duty all night, and we’ve had unusual 
traffic with Madrid. First a lot of press, and then a 
host of commercial messages. There’s some financial 
trouble in Spain, I think.” 

And as the young man said this, Leonard Hamilton, 
the engineer-in -charge, entered the room on his 
morning inspection. 

” Well, Cator,” he asked, addressing the operator 
after he had shaken hands with Sylvia, “ has the fore- 
cast gone out ? ” 

The young man replied in the affirmative, and then 
handed the telephone to another man, rather slimmer 
and fair-haired, who had just come on duty; at the 
same time he signed the log-book, pointing to an entry 
recording the fact that at seven forty-seven he had 
called up Madrid on the continuous-wave set, and they 
had not yet replied. 

” Ah, the same old dodge ! ” declared Mr. Hamilton, 
himself a youngish, good-looking man. “ They pretend 
they can’t get our ‘C.W.,’ and always want us to send 
on spark just because it is easier for them. They really 
aren’t playing the game over there. Try them again 
at ten, and every fifteen minutes afterwards. Is 
there much to go ? ” 

” Eighteen messages.” 

“ You’ll get them away soon, no doubt,” the chief 
engineer said. “They’ve done the same old trick 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


73 

before. They bang over all their traffic in a bunch 
to us, and then tell us to stand by for half an hour.’' 

''They did that early this morning,” Cator said. 
'* They ended their transmission at four, and at once 
told us to stand by till five. Fortunately we cleared 
all our traffic to them then.” 

Hamilton, a most genial and delightful man, who 
was loved by all the staff in that outlandish comer 
of England, and who was one of the best known Marconi 
engineers, smiled, and remarked : 

" I know them, Cator — I know only too well ! ” 

And he bent to glance at the log that had been kept 
during the night. 

When outside in the glorious morning sunshine, 
Geoffrey turned to the pretty girl at his side as together 
they walked back past the direction-finding building 
along the path down to the hotel, and said : 

" I’m still puzzled over that affair I told you about 
last night, dear. It’s most mysterious. I’m certain 
that the man I met in the hall of the Polurrian Hotel 
last night was the same man. I telephoned at eight 
o’clock this morning, but they tell me that Mr. Martin 
— which was the name he gave — has left. He had a 
car to Gwinear Road station last night, and caught 
the sleeper to Paddington.” 

” Because he knew that you had recognised him 
— eh? ” 

'' I sincerely hope he doesn’t suspect that I recog- 
nised him,” said Falconer. '' But at any rate it is, 
to say the least, strange that he should be down here.” 

'' It is,” the girl agreed. ” Probably you’ll leam 
something further about him soon.” Then she added : 
'' Mother wants you to come with us this afternoon 
to Kynance Cove. She is asking Mr. and Mrs. 
Hamilton and two other ladies from the hotel ; we are 
going to picnic there.” 

He began to protest that he had work to do, but 
later, when he consulted Hamilton, the pair decided 
to finish early and join the ladies at half -past three. 
This they did, and while Hamilton, brisk and burly. 


74 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

drove his wife in his own ^^rey car, Geoffrey, in a hired 
car, accompanied Sylvia and her mother, and the two 
other ladies with whom Mrs. Beverley was slightly 
acquainted. 

The drive was a beautiful one through one of the 
wildest and remotest parts of Cornwall, over the 
fresh breezy hills, through the old-world village of 
Mullion, with its narrow, crooked streets, thence up 
the hill to Penhale, and over the high-up straight road 
which leads to Lizard Town. Before reaching the 
town, however, they turned to the right just after 
passing the Travellers’ Rest, and presently found 
themselves down in the Kynance Cove, one of the most 
celebrated and most romantic spots on that rugged 
granite coast. 

They descended in the little bay beyond which rose 
from the sea the Gull Rock and Asparagus Island, 
with its cave known as the Devil’s Throat, and walked 
upon the silvery sand beneath the high cliffs of beauti- 
fully veined and coloured serpentine. 

Perfectly lovely I ” declared Mrs. Beverley. “ Just 
to think that they issue a storm-warning on such a 
glorious day 1 ” 

“ Storms at sea often brew when the weather is 
brightest — just as they do in our own lives, Mrs. 
Beverley,” Geoffrey remarked. 

” Ah, you’re always so horribly philosophical,” 
laughed the American woman. ” I suppose it’s your 
profession that makes you so.” Together they had 
mounted to the top of a grass-grown cliff, and with 
their picnic basket, sat down to tea, which Mrs. Beverley 
poured out from Thermos flasks. 

From where the party sat there spread a magnificent 
panorama of sea and rugged coast. Before them were 
the two granite islands around which thousands of 
gulls were swooping, while eastward lay the Venton 
Hill and the many rocks around the Lizard — the most 
southerly point in England — truly a wonderful scene, 
so weird, rugged, and remote. 

Presently, after tea, Sylvia, looking very sweet 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 75 

in her summer gown, wandered away with the man she 
loved, leaving Hamilton with the four ladies to stroll 
and chatter. The pair took a rocky path which 
ascended higher up the hill, and as they went along, 
Mrs. Beverley shouted after them : 

“ Remember, dear, we leave at six o’clock I ” 

The girl smiled back, waved her hand, and then went 
on with her companion. 

Perhaps Mrs. Beverley was not altogether pleased 
with the situation, for her secret intention had all 
along been to marry Sylvia into the peerage. Had 
she not come to London for that purpose ? Yet, after 
all, Geoffrey Falconer was a charming and highly- 
intelligent young fellow, whose several discoveries in 
wireless were, she had been told, likely to bring him 
a considerable fortune in the future. 

As the pair halted on the top of the hill, Sylvia 
suddenly paused, and said : 

** Do you know, Geoffrey, I can't help thinking about 
that strange man you saw in the Polurrian last night.” 

” Yes,” he said. ” Somehow I, too, can’t forget 
him. I first met him in the wagon-restaurant of the 
express from Paris to Calais about three weeks ago. 
He sat at the next table, and though he was reading 
the Matin between the courses at lunch, I noticed that 
he seemed to be watching me.” 

“Not another Edward Everard, I hope,” said the 
girl, whose hair was being blown across her face by 
the sea breeze which was just springing up. 

“ I hope not,” laughed her merry lover. “ But 
he seems to have followed me so persistently. Why 
I cannot tell. Possibly he may have learnt my pro- 
fession, and of my post in the Marconi service.” 

“ And if he has, then, what motive has he for following 
you ? One thing is reassuring. Your secret diagrams 
are now in a safe place. When did you see him again 
after meeting him in the train ? ” 

“ On the boat, crossing to Dover. Then I lost sight 
of him, until one morning, when I arrived by train at 
Chelmsford as usual, I saw him lounging downstairs 


76 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

in the booking-hall. At first I did not recognise him, 
but after I had passed and was walking along that path 
which is the short cut to the Works, I recollected the 
incident on the Calais express. Then it all passed 
from my mind again until I encountered him accidentally 
in the lounge of the Polurrian. Why was he here ? 

“ Perhaps to spend a week by the sea ! ” laughed 
Sylvia. 

Hardly that ! Falconer said. He was down 
here for some distinct purpose. And that purpose 
I mean to discover. I intend to establish why he 
came down here so near the Poldhu station and stayed 
the night as Mr. Martin. Remember, only the other 
day he was at Chelmsford, and now he had been to 
Poldhu, and left hurriedly after seeing me.” 

” Perhaps he never expected you were here.” 

“ That’s exactly my opinion. Probably my presence 
has frightened him off. I only hope it has. Never- 
theless I don’t like the situation. Something is amiss 
somewhere — and I intend to fathom it.” 

The man is not English, you told me. Why should 
he go under the name of Martin ? ” 

Martin is a name not unknown in France,” Falconer 
remarked. “ He may be French, Indeed, I recollect 
when I first saw him in the train I put him down as 
a Parisian.” 

Both Sylvia and her lover were much puzzled. It 
certainly was annoying to be watched as Falconer 
had evidently been. 

That evening they drove back over the Cornish 
hills with the sun setting away across the Atlantic. 
But already the breeze was increasing. The storm 
prophecy of early morning was being fulfilled. 

Together they dined pleasantly in that long room 
at the Poldhu Hotel which overlooks the pretty cove, 
Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton dining with them. Afterwards 
they all went across the wide grounds of the wireless 
station to the Hamiltons’ pretty bungalow, where they 
spent the remainder of the evening. 

Hamilton was a typical Marconi man, burly, easy- 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 77 

going, and refined. An expert wireless engineer, he 
had worked stations in India, South America, and 
other places, and ran a secret station during the war — 
a station which had to its credit the destroying of 
many German submarines. With his charming, dark- 
haired, cosmopolitan wife who that night was hostess 
to the wealthy South American widow, he had lived in 
all sorts of outlandish places in the shadow of wireless 
aerials, ever on duty day and night with the alarm-bell 
at his bedside in case of a breakdown. 

Of wireless troubles he had many. Yet he was one 
of those easy-going golfers whom nothing disturbed. 
He was^ devoted to his wife ; he led an ideal life in 
his picturesque, roomy bungalow in that wild, wind- 
swept spot overlooking the Atlantic, and he smoked 
his pet pipe, and never allowed anything to upset him. 
With all the public schoolboy spirit, he was devoted 
to his duty, and though severe and just, was yet highly 
popular with his whole staff. 

In that bungalow the Hamiltons led a charming 
existence, though, if judged by life in London, it might 
be voted terribly dull. So it was in winter when there 
were no summer visitors at the hotel. But even then 
they had the society of the little colony of Marconi 
men who lived in other bungalows and down in Mullion 
or in Cury. 

Sylvia was delighted with Mrs. Hamilton’s outspoken 
cosmopolitanism. She had been in half-a-dozen 
different lands with her husband, and her bungalow 
life suited her, even though servants were, perhaps, 
hard to keep in that remote spot. But her house was 
well-ordered, and furnished with great taste, a fact 
upon which Mrs. Beverley commented. 

In the long drawing-room where the furnishings 
showed souvenirs of travel far afield, the chief engineer 
and Geoffrey smoked their cigarettes, while the ladies 
gossiped. Presently the two men left and entered 
the dining-room for a drink before parting. Then 
Geoffrey, as they sat near the table together, told his 


78 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

colleague of the strange movements of the visitor to 
the Polurrian Hotel. 

** Very funny 1 agreed Hamilton, who at that 
moment was lighting his beloved briar. What can 
he be doing down here ? Of course, we have lots of 
people trying to pry around the station. But I always 
take a very firm hand. Nobody sees anything except 
by signed order from the head office. It wouldn't 
do to take strangers into the transmitting room where 
they could read any of the messages." 

" Of course not," Geoffrey said. " But I intend 
to follow up the fellow and see what his game is. I 
don’t like being spied upon like this." 

" Yes, try to solve the mystery," replied the engineer- 
in-charge. 

Next day Geoffrey was early astir. At six o’clock 
he was already out and over at the wireless station, 
making some tests upon the new gear, and at nine, 
after a hurried breakfast at the hotel, he walked over 
to the Polurrian, where, from the hall-porter, he learned 
several facts. The visitor, Mr. Martin, had arrived 
by the evening train from London, had dined, and had 
gone out for about an hour on foot in the evening light 
— across the cliffs in the direction of Pradanack, he 
believed. Then he came back and went early to bed. 
All next day he had lounged about the hotel, chatting 
with several of the ladies. Just before dinner he had 
suddenly ordered a car and told them at the office 
to ring up the stationmaster at Penzance and secure 
a sleeper to Paddington, and that he would join the 
train at Gwinear Road. 

Later in a hired car Geoffrey drove to the little town 
of Helston, and took train to the terminus of that 
winding branch-line which ends at Gwinear Road, 
on the main line from Penzance to Paddington. From 
the stationmaster there he learnt that Martin had 
joined the night mail to Paddington. He also learnt 
something further — ^namely, that he had despatched 
a telegram to a person named Meyer at an address 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


79 

in Hertford Road, Bayswater. The words were : 

Thursday at eleven/' 

At once Geoffrey decided to return to London. There- 
fore, he telephoned to Hamilton at Poldhu asking him 
to tell Mrs. Beverley that he was called to town, and 
promising to be back very soon. 

An hour later he was in the slow train for Plymouth, 
and that night, the night of Wednesday, he :was back 
in London. 

At midnight he passed the house in Hertford Road, 
Bayswater. It was in darkness, but was evidently 
a place where apartments were let, quite a respectable 
house of the usual Bayswater type. 

He slept at the Great Western Hotel at Paddington, 
without even a clean collar, be it said, and just before 
eleven o’clock next day he stood looking idly into a 
shop window in Westboume Grove, at the comer of 
Hertford Road, pretending not to be interested in any 
passer-by. 

At about a minute before eleven the mysterious 
Mr. Martin, smartly-dressed and walking jauntily, 
turned the comer behind Falconer, and passing up 
Hertford Road, rang at the door of the house which 
the young wireless engineer had examined on the 
previous night. 

In a few seconds the door was opened by a maid, 
and Mr. Martin disappeared within. 

A girl of about eighteen, who looked like a dress- 
maker from one of the several establishments in The 
Grove,” was the only person in the road at the moment. 
Geoffrey noticed her. She was rather poorly-dressed, 
and seemed to be searching for some house, the descrip- 
tion of which she did not recognise. 

Gaining the comer of Westboume Grove, she was 
met by a quietly-dressed, middle-aged man, to whom 
she spoke a few words hurriedly. The man replied, 
apparently telling her something. Then with a smile 
they parted, the girl going in the direction of Queen’s 
Road, and the man, who seemed to be an idler, calmly 


8o 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


filling his pipe and lighting it as he stood at the junction 
of the two thoroughfares. 

Geoffrey saw all .this, but it did not strike him as 
in any way peculiar. In London many men meet 
girls at the comers of streets, speak a few words to them, 
and then pass on. There was nothing really unusual 
about the girl’s action. 

Falconer's chief concern at the moment was not 
to be recognised by the man who had, no doubt, watched 
him when coming over from Paris, where he had been 
on business for his company — the man who had taken 
alarm on seeing him down at Poldhu. For over an 
hour carefully he watched the door of that house in 
Hertford Road, taking every precaution that he was 
not observed from the windows. If anything sinister 
was in progress, then, no doubt, somebody would look 
forth to see that all was clear and that there was no 
watcher. 

Half an hour after noon the door suddenly opened, 
when the mysterious Martin emerged, and passing 
out of the gate, turned back in the direction where 
Falconer was watching. 

Fortunately he drew back in time to escape recog- 
nition, and to watch Martin enter a taxi and drive 
away. Another taxi was near the kerb, therefore in 
it he followed the foreigner away to North London, 
to a small, rather dingy shop where electrical appliances 
were sold — a shop well known to wireless experimenters 
who are in search of odd and second-hand apparatus 
and bargains of every description. 

The man remained in the place for nearly half an 
hour, but so blocked up was window and door that the 
passer-by in Chalk Farm Road could not get a glimpse 
within. The establishment was one of the most antique 
in London, and patronised widely by amateurs as well 
as the greatest scientists in that city. 

Presently he came forth bearing a good-sized wooden 
box, which he put on the front of the taxi, and then 
drove to the Hotel Russell, where he entered and 
dismissed the taxi. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 8i 

A judicious chat with the hall-porter revealed the 
fact that the name under which the stranger was known 
was Mr. Charles Lazarus. And he declared himself 
as a French subject. 

With this knowledge Geoffrey engaged a room at 
the hotel and started to keep strict surveillance upon 
the stranger. The man’s movements were most 
mysterious. That same evening he met three other 
men, palpably foreigners, at the Cafe Royal, where 
they dined together expensively, and afterwards all 
four drove in a taxi to a big double-fronted house in 
Maresfield Gardens, Hampstead. 

Some time after they had been inside, Geoffrey 
managed to slip into the small front garden, and, 
approaching stealthily one of the lower bay windows, 
listened. He distinguished men’s voices, though he 
could not hear what words were being uttered. He 
thought they were speaking in French. 

Suddenly he heard a sharp metallic clicking. 
Instantly he recognised it as the tick of a Morse telegraph 
“ sounder.” The letters of the alphabet were being 
sent both rapidly and well. There was no message — 
merely the letters A to Z, followed quickly by the 
numbers o to 9. They were evidently testing some 
apparatus. 

He looked about to see any telegraph wires around 
the house, but the night was too dark and overcast 
.to enable him to distinguish anything. 

What was happening within, he wondered ? The 
sound was certainly that of either a post-office telegraph 
transmitter or receiving “ inker.” The click was 
too familiar and too pronounced for him to be 
mistaken. 

Fearing discovery he withdrew, and then he waited 
in a dark doorway for the reappearance of the man 
upon whom he was keeping observation. Martin 
came out very soon after eleven o’clock, and walking 
down to Swiss Cottage station, took train, and made 
his way back to the hotel. 

Falconer became more than ever puzzled. What 

F 


82 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

was the connection between this Frenchman’s visit 
to Poldhu and the tapping of that Morse key ? Of 
some sinister plot he felt convinced. Why should 
the stranger have watched him so closely in the train 
to Calais, and then flown on being recognised at the 
Polurrian Hotel ? 

Next morning after breakfast he went to the hall- 
porter of the Hotel Russell, and casually inquired 
whether he had seen Mr. Lazarus. 

‘‘ The gentleman left at seven- thirty, sir,” was the 
man’s prompt reply. “ I put his luggage on a taxi, 
and I heard him tell the man to drive to Paddington.” 

Paddington ! Had the man of mystery returned 
to Cornwall ? That was Falconer’s thought. 

Quickly he drove in a taxi to Paddington, where he 
ascertained from the booking-clerk that four first-class 
return tickets had been issued to Truro that morning. 
He described the man Martin as the person who had 
paid for them. Eager not to lose sight of the four 
foreigners. Falconer hurried to Marconi House, and 
was soon on the private land- telegraph line which con- 
nects the head office with the wireless station at remote 
Poldhu — the line over which all the messages are sent 
to and from London. 

Seated at the telegraph-key. Falconer was soon 
talking by Morse to one of the assistant-engineers 
named Benfield, Mr. Hamilton having gone into 
Helston to see after the delivery of some overdue 
machinery which had been sent from the works at 
Chelmsford. 

To Benfield he described Martin and his companions, 
and asked him to motor over to Truro, meet them on 
arrival, and watch where they went. He added that 
he should take the next train down to Truro, where 
he would, on arrival, meet Benfield at the Red Lion. 
He also sent a message through Benfield to Sylvia 
telling her of his movements. 

At noon he was in the express due to reach Truro 
three hours after the arrival of the mysterious four. 
At seven o’clock that evening he entered the old- 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 83 

world Red Lion Hotel, and found Benfield awaiting 
him with disappointing news. 

No men answering the description of the four foreigners 
had arrived at Truro by the London express which had 
left Paddington at ten-thirty and had previously 
arrived. 

Geoffrey was nonplussed. His plans had gone 
entirely wrong ! That some mischief was intended 
he felt assured. His intuition told him that Martin 
and his companions should be watched, but evidently 
they had very cleverly evaded pursuit. 

They might have purposely broken their journey 
at Exeter or at Plymouth. Therefore, he met three 
other possible trains from London, yet each time he 
was doomed to disappointment. That they had taken 
tickets to Truro was no evidence that they intended to 
alight there. They might have got out at some wayside 
station. 

So after the arrival of the half-past ten train that 
night there was nothing to do but hire a car, and, accom- 
panied by Benfield, he returned to Poldhu, arriving 
there half an hour after midnight. 

The wireless station was brilliantly lit. The great 
generators were going, ready for the commencement 
of the night’s heavy traffic, for real work commences 
there at one o’clock in the morning, because, as all 
wireless men know, daylight interferes with the 
strength of wireless signals, so most of the cross-Atlantic 
traffic and that to distant ships is carried on from that 
remote comer of England between nightfall and dawn. 

Falconer, after a chat with Hamilton, went back 
to the hotel, where he slept till six, and then, after 
an early breakfast, drove by car back to the Red Lion 
at Truro. For three days he remained there, eagerly 
watching the arrival of every train, but he saw nothing 
of the men who had so cleverly evaded his watchful- 
ness. It now became quite evident that Truro was 
not the real destination of Martin and his companions. 

On the fourth day, however, at sundown, as he was 
passing out of the smoking-room of the old-fashioned 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


84 

hotel through the lounge into the busy street, it being 
market day, he chanced to glance to the left at the 
crowd of farmers standing at the public bar, when 
suddenly he caught sight of a man whom he instantly 
recognised as having been one of Martin’s companions 
at the Cafe Royal. In broken English the man was 
inquiring of the barmaid the way to Tregoney, and 
she was telling him that it was about six miles out 
on the Pl5nnouth road, and that he could get a taxi 
at the garage opposite the hotel. 

Falconer held his breath, and paused. 

It was evident that the stranger had only just arrived 
in Truro. Tregoney — the young man recollected the 
name. Ten minutes later he learnt that the place 
was a small village on the main road to Plymouth, 
between Truro and St. Austell. So he allowed the 
foreigner to go, and waited in impatience till night 
fell, when he hired a car, and, with a little flash-lamp 
in his pocket, drove to the outskirts of the remote 
village. There he ordered the taxi-driver to wait for 
an hour, and then went on to seek what information 
he could. 

Halfway along the village street, where lights showed 
in the windows of most of the cottages, he came to a 
small inn, which he entered and ordered some cold 
beef and a bottle of beer. Landlords of inns are pro- 
verbially talkative to their good customers, and from 
the burly Cornish host Geoflrey, as he ate his meal, 
was not long in ascertaining that a strange foreign 
gentleman , whose description tallied exactly with Martin , 
had taken a large house at the farther end of the 
town.” He was a stranger who had come over to 
England for his health, and he had rented the place 
furnished from old Miss Trethowen, who had gone to 
live in London for six months. 

The foreign gentleman had only arrived three days 
before, and as far as the landlord knew had not yet 
engaged any servants, except a deaf old woman named 
Grey, who had acted as Miss Trethowen’s caretaker. 
Nobody in the village had ever seen the foreign gentle- 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 85 

man before. He had arrived with a companion, a 
tall, thin-faced young man, and they had but little 
luggage except two large wooden boxes. 

Having ascertained these facts, Geoffrey finished 
his meal and walked along the high road until he came 
to a large, old-fashioned house, standing back in the 
darkness from the road, along which ran many telegraph 
wires. A carriage-drive led up to the place, which 
seemed very lonely and neglected. 

In a window of the first floor there showed a light. 
Geoffrey, treading softly, entered the gate and silently 
crossed the rough grass towards the house. Scarcely 
had he reached the short flight of steps before the front 
door, being very cautious because a house dog might 
be about, when he heard a familiar click-click-clickety- 
click — the noise of a Morse “ sounder.’’ 

It was again the same sound he had heard in Hamp- 
stead. Why ? Had they, he wondered, been testing 
some instruments there — instruments bought of the 
dealer in Chalk Farm Road ? 

In the darkness he strained his ears. What he read 
by those dots and dashes amazed him. He stood 
aghast for a few moments. 

Then, having listened intently to make quite certain 
that his discovery was an absolute fact, he stole quietly 
away, and walking back through the village, re-entered 
the taxi and drove back over to Poldhu. 

His suspicions had been confirmed ! Though it 
was very late when he arrived, he found Hamilton in 
his pretty bungalow, and told him of his strange 
discovery. 

“ You’ll take every precaution in secret, won’t 
you ? ” urged Falconer. “ Nobody must Imow of 
this.” 

” Trust me,” replied the engineer-in-charge, at 
once eager and ready. 

” We’ve only to wait and be very watchful. There’s 
some clever game afoot, without a doubt,” Falconer 
said, and presently he went along the path to the hotel, 
and to bed, while Hamilton, even at that late hour. 


86 


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crossed to the transmission room for a final look round 
before retiring. 

Next day Geoffrey, who confided his suspicions to 
Sylvia, became very active. Several hours he spent 
in the transmission room, where Cator, with the 

Brown receivers” over his head, was very busy trans- 
mitting and receiving acknowledgments. Falconer 
was watching every message, and also spent much of 
his time in the adjoining room, where the land-line 
from Marconi House was constantly working. 

A dozen times that morning he was in close con- 
sultation with Hamilton. Then, at about five o’clock 
in the afternoon, both drove in Hamilton’s car into 
Truro. 

Till about half-past nine they waited at the hotel, 
when they drove out to Tregoney, and, leaving the car 
at the little inn, they both walked along to the village 
post-office, where, even though so late, they saw the 
postmaster and explained that they were awaiting 
an urgent telephone message from the wireless station 
at Poldhu. Hamilton having made himself known, 
the postmaster at once agreed to send along to the inn 
— only a few yards distant — and call them when they 
were wanted. 

Then the pair returned to the inn and ordered 
supper. Scarcely were they halfway through it when 
the postmaster himself hurried in and announced that 
Poldhu was on the line. 

Hamilton rose instantly and dashed out. Five 
minutes later he returned. 

All right ! ” he said breathlessly. It’s just what 
you expected. Falconer. Henway, the chief constable 
of Truro, and four of his men are awaiting us just 
down the road.” 

Together the pair went out into the darkness, and 
at the end of the village the chief constable came out 
from the shadows to join them. After a few words 
from Hamilton, the police official whistled softly, and 
from nowhere, apparently, four of his assistants 
appeared. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 87 

Then whispering softly all went along to Miss 
Tretho wen’s house, and slipping one after the other 
into the garden, they surrounded it. This effected, 
Henway rang boldly at the door, but received no answer. 
There was no sign of the clicking of the Morse instru- 
ment. All was quiet. Thrice he rang, when at last 
the bolts were drawn, and the thin man, whom Falconer 
had seen in the Red Lion in Truro, cautiously opened 
the door. 

Next second the police rushed in. Hen way and 
Falconer were first inside, and turning into a room 
on the left of the hall, which was Miss Trethowen’s 
dining-room, they saw upon the table a most up-to-date 
Morse telegraph instrument with wires attached to it 
trailing along the red Turkey carpet and out of the 
window. 

The commotion caused by the entry of the police 
was great. All four occupants of the house were 
utterly staggered when Henway ordered their arrest 
on a charge of tapping telegraph wires, the property 
of the Postmaster-General, and with the interference 
of the secrecy of messages. 

The man Martin instantly showed fight, firing three 
revolver shots point-blank at Falconer, none of which, 
very fortunately, took effect. The fellow was, however, 
quickly overpowered, and all four were later on con- 
veyed to Truro police-station and placed in the cells. 

To cut short this narrative of the romance of wireless, 
it is sufiicient to explain that, as was afterwards dis- 
covered, the man who called himself Martin was an 
expert French bank thief, who had committed many 
great swindles both in Europe and America. In this 
particular case he had succeeded in obtaining, under 
threats of blackmail from a hard-up bank-clerk in 
Madrid, a copy of the secret code used by the London 
office of the Estremadura Bank — a great Spanish 
banking corporation — when ordering telegraphic pay- 
ments to be made from the head office in Madrid. 

With his three associates, one of whom was an ex- 
telegraphist of the post-office at Aran juez, near Madrid ^ 


88 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

Martin had come to England, having purposely followed 
Falconer from Paris, knowing him by repute as a 
Marconi engineer. 

His movements had at first been closely followed, 
for the Metropolitan police had been warned of Martin’s 
arrival, and he had been shadowed to Hertford Road 
by a girl in the employ of Scotland Yard. But after- 
wards, so honest did the man appear, that the surveil- 
lance had been dropped, and it had remained to Geoffrey 
to investigate the plot. 

Martin had, as it was afterwards proved, bought 
in Chalk Farm Road certain component parts of a very 
sensitive and up-to-date appliance for tapping the land- 
line from London to Poldhu, which runs from Plymouth 
to St. Austell, and past Miss Trethowen’s house to 
Truro and Poldhu. 

By tapping the trunk telegraph wire that night 
Martin had been able, by a very ingenious arrangement 
which Falconer afterwards examined, to despatch an 
urgent message to Poldhu just as though it had been 
received over the counter in the office in Fenchurch 
Street, in London, and tapped out from Marconi House. 
Thus the conspirators had been able to interpose a 
false message which they intended should be sent by 
wireless from Poldhu to Madrid. 

The whole plot was extremely cleverly conceived, 
for on that night, just before Hamilton rang up Poldhu, 
they had sent instructions in code presumably from 
the London office in Lombard Street to the head office 
in Madrid ordering the bank to pay to a certain Senor 
Alfonso Fonesca, living in the Calle Zorilla, in Madrid, 
the sum of thirteen thousand five hundred and eighty 
pounds sterling at the current rate of exchange. 

Needless to record, the false message which had 
been so cleverly imposed upon the land-wire was never 
dispatched from Poldhu, for that night all messages 
had been suspect, and the one in question was held 
back. 

At the time of writing, Martin — who at the Court 
Assizes at Bodmin was proved to be a Swiss subject 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 89 

— is serving a term of seven years’ penal servitude, as 
well as his three companions, all of whom were Belgians. 

Happily the bogus message they sent from Tregoney 
did not, as they hoped, pass through the Devil’s 
Oven ” and out into Space. So the bank was saved 
a theft of nearly fourteen thousand pounds. 


CHAPTER V 

THE MYSTERY WIDOW 

** Isn’t it a horrid nuisance, Geoffrey, Lord Hendlewycke 
has arrived ! ” exclaimed Sylvia Beverley as she stood 
with her lover on the terrace before the luxurious 
H6tel Royal, at Dinard. 

“ Hendlewycke here ! ” exclaimed the young Marconi 
engineer in surprise. “ Then I suppose it means that 
I’d better get back to London,” he said rather grimly. 

“ Isn’t it too bad of mother ? She’s just told me 
that she wrote to the fellow asking him to join us on 
our motor trip to Touraine,” the pretty, dark-haired 
girl said petulantly. “ I shall decline to go.” 

But you know the reason, dearest, just as I do,” 
said Falconer. Your mother disapproves of us 
being so much together, and intends that you shall 
become Lady Hendlewycke.” 

I obey mother in all things — but I won’t marry 
Hendlewycke,” declared the girl decisively. ” Of 
course he’s awfully useful to us socially. Through 
him we’ve got to know some of the very best people 
in London. Mother likes all that sort of thing, but 
personally he bores me.” 

After Mrs. Beverley’s stay at Poldhu she had taken 
Sylvia on a motor tour. They had landed at Boulogne 
from Folkestone, and had had a beautiful run to Dinard, 
where Geoffrey, with three weeks’ leave due to him , 
had joined them a few days before. 


go 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


Both mother and daughter were delighted with 
Dinard. It is a place which in summer appeals to 
the wealthy, with its luxurious hotels and gay casino, 
its smart world of bathing and dancing, and its expen- 
sive shops, most of them branches of the best establish- 
ments in Paris. There, in the Casino, on the plage 
or in the hotels, the haut-monde loves to rub shoulders 
with the demi-monde^ and in these days it is, par excel- 
lence, the resort of the blatant war-profiteer and his 
fat, uncouth wife. 

It was noon. The gay, cosmopolitan idlers of both 
sexes were either bathing or taking their aperatif, 
or else wandering about the scrupulously clean streets 
and inspecting the shops. 

Sylvia, in her cream summer gown and large hat, 
presented a delightful figure as, at her lover’s side, she 
wandered presently along the Rue du Casino, in order 
to buy some flowers for the table of their private sitting- 
room at the hotel. 

The weather was glorious. It was warmer on what 
the French term the Emerald Coast than it had been 
in Cornwall, while the life and society was, indeed, a 
change from the rural quietude of Poldhu Cove. 

Just as the pair were passing the entrance to the 
Casino, a stout, middle-aged, very smartly-dressed 
woman halted and spoke to Sylvia. 

'' Well, Madame Claudet ! ” the girl cried. Why 
— how long have you been over in Europe ? ” 

About four months,” she replied, speaking broken 
English with a strong French accent. “ My husband 
died, you know.” 

“ What ? ” exclaimed Sylvia. Mr. Claudet dead ! ” 

And for the first time she noticed that the lady was 
in mourning. 

'' He died of heart failure, suddenly — in the street 
in New York,” the rather handsome widow said. Then 
when Sylvia had expressed her condolence, she turned 
and introduced Geoffrey. 

“ I’m at the H6tel des Terrasses,” Madame Claudet 
said to the girl. “ Where are you staying ? 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 91 

Sylvia told her, and begged her to call upon her 
mother that afternoon. 

“ We shall be so very delighted to see you again,’' she 
added. “ Mother has often spoken of you, and recalled 
our gay days together at Palm Beach.” 

Madame promised to call, and then, when Sylvia 
and Geoffrey walked on, the girl said : 

“ Poor Madame Claude 1 1 I’m so sorry ! Her 
husband was a very wealthy man. They had a lot 
of valuable property, I believe, in Brazil. We 
knew her in Florida. I’m so glad we’ve come across 
her. I shall ask mother to invite her to go with us 
to Touraine.” 

At luncheon Geoffrey met Lord Hendlewycke, whom, 
of course, he had known in London. All the men 
who went up and down St. James’s Street knew 
Hendlewycke as a very hard-up peer, who was glad 
to get dinners and luncheons at other people’s expense. 
How he lived nobody exactly knew, for he was believed 
not to possess the proverbial “ bean.” Yet he was 
a bright optimist, with a fund of amusing anecdotes, 
and very popular with hostesses of all sorts. 

In the afternoon the French widow called upon 
Mrs. Beverley, and was received with great enthusiasm. 
At tea Geoffrey met her again, and afterwards agreed 
with Sylvia that she was a most charming person. 
She had been bom in the Alpes Mari times, but had been 
taken to America by her parents when she was about 
eighteen, and had married a Mr. Claude t, an American, 
whose father had been French. Hence she possessed 
all the natural chic of the Frenchwoman, combined with 
the go-ahead characteristics of the American. 

Next day, notwithstanding Sylvia’s appeal, Geoffrey 
left Dinard for London in response to a telegram he 
pretended had come from Marconi House. Mrs. 
Beverley, at heart, did not regret his departure, because 
she hoped that during the motor tour through the 
C6tes du Nord, Morbihan, and the Maine-et-Loire, 
which she had arranged, his lordship might propose 
to Sylvia. 


92 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

Back again at the Marconi Works at Chelmsford, 
Geoffrey became immersed in his patient research 
into further wonders of wireless. He was engaged 
with others upon a new idea. 

One day he had occasion to go from Chelmsford 
over to Witham, where there had just been established 
the new wireless station in direct communication with 
Paris. Witham is nine miles from Chelmsford, and, 
although messages from France are received upon the 
aerial wires there, the transmission is effected from the 
great aerial at the Chelmsford Works. 

On that particular morning he had been in the 
transmission room at Chelmsford, watching the huge 
panel with its big array of great illuminated globes — 
the transmission-valves for continuous waves — and 
chatting with Mr. Drew, the shrewd, dark-haired 
engineer in grey tweeds, who was, perhaps, the world's 
greatest expert in wireless telephony. In the big hall, 
full of wonderful apparatus and huge condensers — 
the result of many scientific brains — the pair had been 
watching the relay work, the rapid dots and dashes 
from the key at Witham, and then, in consultation, 
they had agreed upon a still further diagram that might 
perhaps give better results. 

In consequence. Falconer had gone over to Witham, 
leaving the ever- watchful Mr. Drew with his powerful 
transmission-set, with which he had a short time 
before spoken across the Atlantic, and to Sena tore 
Marconi while on board his yacht in the Mediterranean 
— the set which he regarded with as much tenderness 
as though it were his own child — as, indeed, it really 
was. 

That wonderful display of apparatus was but the 
germ of a revolution in the transmission of speech. 
It was purely experimental, and was now being used, 
not for long-distance telephony, but for the exchange 
of Morse signals with Paris — sent automatically at 
such a speed as to be unreadable by any listener. 

The inner room was a hive of industry. Upon the 
operating bench was a siphon recorder " — a delicate 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 93 

instrument which was actually writing, by means of 
a kind of fountain pen, upon the paper “ tape the 
dots and dashes sent automatically at a speed of one 
hundred words a minute. The pen never left the 
paper, but rose up and down, making short or long 
strokes in violet ink on the upper side of the paper, 
and was one of the latest marvels of delicate wireless 
instruments. 

Geoffrey glanced at it casually. It clicked on 
continuously night and day in response to the automatic 
hand of the transmitter in Paris tapping his key. 

The Frenchmen are keeping us very busy,” Graham 
remarked. “ Look ! We’re overwhelmed, but up at 
the Fen church Street office it must be worse.” 

Geoffrey nodded. For some seconds he watched 
the ” recorder ” at work, and then presently he and 
Graham sat down at the receiving set and began to 
discuss where an improvement would possibly be made. 
They were seated close to the “ recorder,” when pre- 
sently, through mere force of habit, Geoffrey, even 
while chatting with Graham, found himself reading 
the incoming messages. Suddenly there became 
recorded on the tape in that curious crooked writing 
the words, Marguerite Claudet.” 

Claudet ? In a moment he recollected that it 
was the name of the wealthy widow to whom 
Sylvia had introduced him in Dinard. He took the 
tape, and -reading back, found that the message, which 
had been dispatched from Paris half an hour before, 
was addressed to a person named Mildmay, apparently 
living in chambers in Ryder Street, London, and that 
it was in code — a jumble of figures and letters. 

At first, the origin of the message being Paris, Geoffrey 
merely smiled within himself at the similarity of the 
name, and recollected the seal of secrecy regarding 
all messages. But a few moments later, he recollected 
that Mrs. Beverley had addressed her friend as dear 
Margot.” For aught he knew the lady was motoring 
with Mrs. Beverley on their trip to the ancient chateaux 
on the Loire. 


94 


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Before leaving Dinard, Sylvia had given him the 
H6tel de TUnivers, at Tours, as their central address 
while in Touraine. At that time Madame Claude t, 
though invited to join the motoring party, had not 
decided whether to accept. In Falconer’s presence 
she had declared that she would be compelled to go 
to Paris to see her bankers upon some matter of business 
from South America. 

The message to Mildmay was evidently a private 
prearranged jumble of figures and letters, the whole 
perhaps meaning but one word, '' yes ” or no.’* 
Such codes are by far the most difficult to decipher. 

Next day, so interested did he become in the message 
through space, which had, of course, been delivered 
to the addressee, that he telegraphed to Sylvia at Tours 
asking whether Madame Claudet was with them, but 
begging that she should not be told of his inquiry. 

The reply came in due course. Madame Claudet 
had been on business to Paris, and had just rejoined 
them at Tours. Naturally, Sylvia asked the reason 
of his inquiry, to which he replied by wire that he would 
tell her when next they met. 

He had, however, established the fact that the rich 
widow had been in Paris, and it certainly seemed as 
if the message he had noticed upon the green recording 
tape was really from her. 

For the next few days he was extremely busy over 
at Witham, assisting in getting the London-Paris 
service going more smoothly. The most delicate 
adjustment of the instruments is necessary in wireless 
stations when at first fitted, for the apparatus is so 
often liable to unaccountable freaks and interruptions, 
each of which must be methodically overcome until 
the service is brought to perfection. 

The apparatus at Witham, having at last been tuned 
up to the highest pitch, Geoffrey suddenly received 
orders to go down and make some adjustments at the 
big transatlantic station high up above Carnarvon, in 
North Wales. 

For two days he remained there, and then returned 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 95 

to Warley, where the Professor was still busy upon 
his monumental book. 

Alone with his private wireless set at one o’clock 
in the morning, the puzzle of that curious cipher 
message from the widow obsessed him. He wore the 
low-resistance telephones over his ears, and was listening 
to Poldhu sending out the day’s news to ships at sea. 
It was better than reading the evening papers, for 
here one had news in tabloid form, the news which was 
printed next morning upon all the transatlantic liners. 

By Jove, I will ! ” he exclaimed aloud to himself, 
after listening to a declaration made by Mr. Lloyd 
George to M. Briand, and reported by the Paris Matin, 
He removed the head-'phones, and then muttered 
to himself : 

'' I wonder who this man Mildmay can be ? I’ll 
find out. It will be interesting — if nothing else. Yet 
somehow — why, I don’t know — I took an instinctive 
dislike to Madame Claudet. Yet there was really 
no reason for it as far as I could see, and she appeared 
to be quite charming.” 

And he switched off, and retired to bed. 

Two days later, having occasion to go up to Marconi 
House, he snatched an hour and went to Ryder Street. 
As he anticipated, the place was a set of bachelor’s 
chambers. The liftman became communicative after 
a ten-shilling note had been pressed into his hand. 

“ Well, sir,” he said in a low voice, “ the fact is 
that I don’t know very much about Mr. Mildmay. 
Lord Bamford let his rooms to him about six months 
ago, and he seems to be away quite a lot. I forward 
his letters to Paris, Vienna, Rome, and other places. 
He is a constant traveller. He must have business 
abroad, I think.” 

“ Does he have any lady friends calling upon him ? ” 

“No. Never to my knowledge, sir. He’s simply 
a gay, irresponsible sort of man. Dines out every 
night either with people in smart society or at one of 
the expensive restaurants, A bit of a mystery, I 
think.’’ 


96 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

Why a mystery ? What do you suspect ? asked 
Geoffrey eagerly as they stood together conversing in 
low tones against the lift. 

“ Well, about a week ago a little old man — a foreigner 
with a grey beard — came here and questioned me 
closely. At first I refused to tell him anything. He 
went away. Later in the evening he called again, 
and together we went round into the Haymarket and 
we had a drink or two. I told him what I knew, 
and — ^well ! — ^he seemed much interested — very much 
interested.'" 

In what way ? " asked Falconer. 

Well, I may as well be frank with you. He offered 
me twenty pounds if I would loan him the duplicate 
key of the fiat which my wife has in order to go in and 
out to see to things for him. He has no meals here, 
but his bedroom has to be seen to each day." 

" Twenty pounds ! Then the little old foreigner 
was very eager to see inside. I wonder why ? " 

“ Yes. That's in my mind. I haven't accepted 
the money, and I don't know that I shall. Mr. Mildmay 
treats me as a gentleman, and I don't see why I should 
go behind his back — especially with a foreigner. He 
must be a gentleman, or Lord Bamford would never 
have let his rooms to him." 

" Does Mr. Mildmay have many visitors ? " 

'' Only two or three men who are intimate friends. 
I think he may be an inventor — or an electrical 
engineer." 

“ What makes you think so ? " 

Because sometimes when I go past the door at 
night, I hear the whirr of the little motor in the flat." 

" Oh ! There's an electric motor there — is there ? " 

"Yes, in the scullery — it's run off the electric light 
current." 

" Do you ever hear any metallic clicks or sharp 
fizzles and noises ? " Falconer asked. 

" No. Nothing — only the motor. A little half- 
horse affair run off the house current. When I was in 
the army I had a lot to do with small dynamos." 


97 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

What can it be used for ? 

Ah ! I can't tell. He keeps his sitting-room 
always closed. He's put a Yale lock on it. And my 
missus is always wondering why." 

Geoffrey Falconer scented mystery. 

" What does he want a motor in his flat for ? " 

That I can't tell you. He's a generous man. I'll 
give him credit for that. But somehow I don't like 
his mysterious electric plant." 

Half an hour later the liftman's wife, on pretence 
of going to Mildmay's room to see that all was straight, 
admitted Falconer, who had a good look round. He 
examined the half-horse electric motor, and found to 
it attached two high-tension wires through the wall 
into the locked room. 

" That's his lordship's dining-room," said the stout, 
youngish woman. I can't think why Mr. Mildmay 
keeps it locked up so securely. Sometimes I think I 
smell a funny smell, like paint, but I'm not quite certain. 
It may be my fancy. Mr. Mildmay is out golfing at 
Berkhampstead to-day." 

Falconer passed into the sitting-room, when the 
first object that greeted him was a cabinet photograph 
of Madame Claudet ! 

He had not been mistaken. What connection could 
the rich Chicago widow have with the man who kept his 
dining-room locked with a Yale latch ? 

The mystery deepened. A problem was presented 
which to Geoffrey Falconer was fascinating, Madame 
was rich and well known in society. What 
possible connection could she have with that man in 
England — the man to whom she had sent a message 
in cipher. Cipher telegrams are quite admissible in 
official correspondence, and also in business, but when 
used for private communication are always suspect — 
except perhaps between lovers. 

“I'd like to see Mr. Mildmay," Geoffrey told the 
porter, who, in reply, declared that the gentleman 
usually came home about six o'clock, dressed, and then 
went out to his club for dinner. 


G 


98 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

So just before six o’clock Falconer returned to Ryder 
Street and watched the entrance of the chambers. 
He had waited for ten minutes or so when a well-dressed 
fair-haired man of about forty, in golf clothes, alighted 
from a taxi and, carrying his clubs, went inside. Then, 
a second later, the liftman appeared in the doorway, 
and gave the arranged signal that he was the person 
Falconer desired to see. 

There was certainly nothing suspicious about 
Mr. Mildmay’s appearance. He was an ordinary 
man of leisure, who had been out in the country 
golfing. 

Day by day, Geoffrey’s work taking him to Witham, 
he was able from time to time to glance at the rapidly 
moving pen of the " recorder.” He was wondering 
if any more messages of mystery would come through 
from the American widow. Each day he looked at 
the register of wireless messages received from Paris, 
but the name of Mildmay did not appear. He told 
nobody of the suspicion which had arisen in his mind. 
As a servant of the Marconi Company, he, like servants 
of the Post-Office, was sworn to preserve the secrecy 
of messages, and this he‘ did. He merely watched 
and waited, even without telling his father. 

Yet somehow — why, he could not himself tell — he 
felt that he would like to see more of the widow’s 
mysterious friend. With that object he one night 
put on his dinner clothes, and waited in Ryder Street 
until Mildmay appeared, when he followed him unseen 
to a small and cosy restaurant in Jermyn Street. 
Scarcely had Mildmay taken his seat at a table against 
the wall when Geoffrey also entered and took a seat 
near him, pretending, of course, to take no interest in 
anything further than the menu which the waiter 
handed him. 

Mildmay apparently told the waiter that he was 
expecting friends, for the man swiftly laid two extra 
places, and he had hardly finished when two middle- 
aged men entered, greeted their friend, and took their 
seats. Their appearance surprised Falconer, for they 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


99 

were flashily-attired, and evidently not of the same 
class as himself. 

In a few moments all three were bending towards 
each other. One of the new-comers was apparently 
relating something in a low, confidential tone, and when 
he had finished, the trio burst into loud, triumphant 
laughter. Then it did not take long to realise that 
they were celebrating some occasion, for champagne 
was soon upon the table and they commenced an 
expensive meal. 

Time after time Falconer endeavoured to catch 
some word of the conversation, but failed. Yet, 
whoever the men were, he felt instinctively that they 
were West End undesirables. After their dinner, they 
strolled together into St. James’s Street, where Mildmay 
parted from them and turned towards Pall Mall, while 
the pair went on into Piccadilly. After walking some 
distance they entered a bar in Vine Street ; yet Geoffrey 
dare not go in after them for fear of being recognised. 
Nevertheless, he had ascertained that Mr. Mildmay 
kept rather curious company. 

A couple of days later Falconer, glancing at the 
register of messages passing between Paris and London, 
saw that during the night another message for Mildmay 
had been received. He referred to the tape record, 
and found that it was in code, as before, rather longer, 
that it had been dispatched from Tours, and was signed 
by the initials M. C.” 

That same evening he called again upon the lift- 
man in Ryder Street, and inquired if the electric 
motor had been running. 

“ I haven’t heard it for quite a fortnight now, sir,” 
replied the man. ‘‘ Last night Mr. Mildmay had two 
friends here : one man in grey, and the other in a 
blue suit. Both were middle-aged.” 

Geoffrey at once described the two men who had 
dined with Mildmay in Jermyn Street. 

” Yes. That’s them, sir. Shady customers, I should 
take ’em to be.” 

” Just my own opinion,” declared Falconer. ” But 


100 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

Fd dearly love to know why the dining-room is kept 
locked, and the reason that half -horse power motor 
is there/’ 

“ So would I, sir,” laughed the man. “ But, after 
all, I expect the explanation would be quite simple. 
I've wondered whether he’s experimenting with some- 
thing or other. At one place I was at we had the same 
mysteriously locked room. But it turned out that 
the tenant was a doctor, and was experimenting with 
the culture of the bacteria of deadly diseases. And 
that was why he kept the door locked.” 

This case we shall find different,” Falconer remarked. 
” I don’t at all like the appearance of Mr. Mildmay’s 
friends. I shall probably come and see you again 
very soon,” he added, as, pressing a Treasury note into 
the man’s hand, he turned and left. 

On the following Friday, in response to a letter 
he received from Sylvia saying that Lord Hendlewycke 
had gone suddenly to Switzerland, and telling him her 
mother would much like to see him to accompany 
them in the car on their return journey across France 
to Boulogne, he obtained a week’s leave, and duly 
arrived at the H6tel de 1’ Uni vers, at Tours. 

On alighting the concierge informed him that the 
ladies were out motoring, but an hour later he met 
them on their return, and received a warm welcome. 
His main object in travelling to Touraine was to meet 
again Madame Claudet. 

'‘Ah, Mr. Falconer ! ” she exclaimed, with her 
pretty French accent, as they shook hands. “Sylvia 
expected you yesterday. We’ve been having, oh ! — 
such a delightful time.” 

“ Yes. It has been real interesting,” said Mrs. 
Beverley. “ We’ve been all over Brittany, and now 
we’ve seen nearly every one of the chateaux of the Loire.” 
Then turning to Madame, she said : “ Come on, Margot, 
dear. It’s time we got upstairs to dress.” 

From the first Geofirey realised that the two ladies were 
on most affectionate terms. They, indeed, addressed 
each other by their Christian names. And he wondered. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS loi 

Madame Claudet looked strikingly handsome as she 
sat that night at dinner, dressed in a very smart, low- 
cut black gown trimmed with silver, with a silver 
ornament in her hair. Sylvia, too, looked charming, 
in a flimsy dance frock of pale-grey. 

As they sat together Mrs. Beverley explained their 
programme, namely, to return by way of Blois, Orleans 
and Fontainebleau, to see the forest and the chateau, 
and thence skirting Paris by Versailles, Beauvais, 
Abbeville, and Boulogne. That was agreed upon, 
and later in the evening Geoffrey went out with Sylvia 
for a stroll beneath the trees in the pleasant Boulevard 
Heurteloup. 

“ I had a dreadful time with Hendlewycke,” the 
girl said as they strolled together. He bored me to 
death, and I fear I became very rude to him in the end. 
That’s why he made an excuse and went off in a huff 
to Switzerland. Of course,” she added, “ mother 
was furious, but now she’s getting over it. I believe 
we shall never see him again.” 

'' Don’t make too sure, dearest,” her lover said. 
” Remember, he’s after money, and he thinks he’ll 
get it through you. Lady Hendlewycke ! How very 
nice it would sound ! ” he added tantalisingly. 

Geoff, you’re horrid ! ” declared the girl, pouting. 

" I suppose you find Madame Claudet a very pleasant 
companion ? ” Falconer went on, walking slowly, for 
the evening was bright, and under the trees many 
people were enjoying the cool air after the heat of an 
oppressive day. 

“ Yes. She’s so awfully jolly.” 

Has she been with you all the time since I left 
you ? ” 

Except when she went to Paris. She left Dinard 
suddenly, and was only away about fifteen hours. She’s 
such a rapid traveller. I fancy I should have been 
half dead with fatigue if I had done such a journey 
in that time. She could have had only about a couple 
of hours in Paris to do the business.” 

” With her bankers — was it not ? ” 


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“ Yes — ^with the Paris agent of her bank. She’s 
been selling some property in Brazil. She’s such a 
thoroughgoing cosmopolitan — and mother is charmed 
with her. She is coming to stay with us in London.” 

“ Excellent ! ” the young man exclaimed, reflecting, 
however, upon those strange messages to that mysterious 
man in Ryder Street. ‘‘ Your mother seems devoted 
to madame,” he went on. 

” Yes. But she’s really awfully good fun. Besides, 
speaking French as she does, she’s been most useful 
to us on our tour. I really don’t know what we should 
have done without her.” 

And yet you only knew her slightly.” 

” Yes. But we knew a lot about her. Wasn’t it 
strange that we met her at Dinard ? We shall have 
a lovely run across to Boulogne. I suppose it will take 
us a week or more,” the girl went on. To-morrow 
we are going to take you to see the Chateau of 
Chinon. You recollect in one of your letters you said 
you would like to see it. We were there last Wednesday 
week. So we’re going again to-morrow.” 

She went on to ask him the reason he had wired about 
Madame Claude t, but Falconer successfully evaded 
her many inquiries. 

On the following morning, with the three ladies, 
Geoffrey was driven along the thirty miles or so of 
delightful road to the ancient and obscure little town, 
with its narrow crooked streets, the pretty Vienne 
river, the historic, old-world place dominated by its 
three wonderful chlLteaux : that of St. Georges, built 
by Henry II of England, the Milieu, and the Coudray, 
in which lived Joan of Arc — the three forming one 
great fortress. 

The guardian took them around the three castles, 
to the three towers of Boissy, with its fine Salle des 
Gardes, and lastly to the three-storeyed prison tower, 
of which so many terrible stories of mediaeval tortures 
are told. Afterwards they lunched at the old Boule 
d’Or, down on the Quai Jeamne d’Arc, and then drove 
to Chenonceux on the road back to Tours, to visit the 


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charming little chateau — one of the most unique of 
all Touraine, and which at that moment was in the 
possession of a well-known American who had bought 
it from the French Government. 

Next day the four set out on the return journey to 
London. Before leaving the Uni vers, however, a 
very unpleasant incident occurred. Geoffrey had paid 
his bill with a thousand-franc note which he had obtained 
from the bank in London before his departure and had 
received the change. Just, however, as he was entering 
the car to leave, the manager came to him hurriedly and 
asked him to step into the bureau for a moment. 
There the note he had given was shown him, and 
declared to be counterfeit ! 

Geoffrey stood stupefied, while the manager waxed 
very angry, declaring that since the war France had 
been flooded by spurious money brought there and 
changed by foreigners. Falconer declared his innocence , 
apologised, and was about to take back the note, when 
the manager in fury retained it to forward to the Bank 
of France for destruction. So he was compelled to 
pay his bill a second time, and also to lose forty pounds 
or so. 

Then, feeling very crestfallen, he rejoined the ladies, 
without, however, letting them know what had 
occurred. 

That night they stopped at the H6tel Modeme, at 
Orleans, and after dinner Geoffrey, without telling 
them of the incident at Tours, warned them to be on 
their guard against spurious French bank notes. 

Oh, yes,” said Madame Claudet. '' I have heard 
that recently great quantities of forged notes have 
been passed all over France. Somebody told me they 
are being made in Spain. One has to be always on 
the look-out for them. It would be so annoying to 
pass one in innocence.” 

Indeed, one could very easily faU into the hands 
of the police,” exclaimed Mrs. Beverley. ” I had a 
most unpleasant time in Dinard. I bought that little 
butterfly brooch at a jeweller's close to the casino, 


104 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

and paid for it, when, to my horror, the man said that 
one of the notes — one for five hundred francs — ^was 
a forgery/' 

I. ‘‘ What did you do, my dear ? " asked madame. 

Do ? Well, I felt a perfect fool. I tore the note 
up and gave the man another." 

'' You never told me that, mother," Sylvia remarked. 

‘'No, dear. I felt too angry about it. So I didn’t 
tell anyone. It occurred four days before we left 
Dinard." 

It was upon the tip of Geoffrey’s tongue to relate 
his own experience at Tours, but he hesitated. 

The run next day to Fontainebleau was glorious, 
and indeed the whole trip across to Boulogne was in 
most delightful weather, and they all thoroughly 
enjoyed it. At Boulogne they left the car to be brought 
to London by the chauffeur, and caught the next boat 
across to Folkestone and so on to London. 

Geoffrey’s leave was up, so he had to be at the 
Works at Chelmsford on the following day. He seized 
the opportunity to run over to Witham, and there 
discovered that during his absence Mr. Mildmay had 
received two further cipher telegrams, one sent from 
Fontainebleau, and one from Beauvais, both signed 
" M. C." 

Now in his many conversations with the handsome 
widow she had never mentioned that she had any friend 
in London. On the contrary, on the night they had 
stopped at Abbeville, while they were dining at the old 
Tete de Boeuf, she had exclaimed across the table to 
Mrs. Beverley : 

“ It really is most sweet of you, dear, to put me 
up in London. I know nobody there nowadays. I’ve 
been away so long." 

She made no mention of the man who occupied those 
expensive chambers in Ryder Street, and as far as 
Geoffrey knew the pair had never met. Naturally, the 
young wireless engineer was often at Mrs. Beverley’s 
house, and his own observations, combined with what 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 105 

Sylvia told him, made it apparent to him that 
Madame Claude t was a most extravagant woman. 

We are out every night somewhere," the girl said. 
" And madame will never allow us to pay a farthing. 
She must be very rich, for she’s ordered eight new 
frocks from Lucille’s." 

" She has no friends in London, has she ? " Falconer 
asked casually. 

" She didn’t have any when she arrived, but, of course, 
she now knows one or two people to whom we’ve intro- 
duced her." 

On the following day another curious telegram came 
through the wireless station at Witham. Dispatched 
from Marseilles, it had been sent across by wireless 
from Paris, and was addressed to Mildmay. It was in 
plain language, and read : Urgent that Marguerite 
should come over. The change would do her good. 
— Jules." 

This puzzled Geoffrey more than ever. Why was 
madame wanted urgently at Marseilles, and what hidden 
meaning was contained in the declaration that the change 
would do her good ? He was very anxious to ascertain 
if she ever met the mysterious Mildmay, and for that 
purpose he went to London one evening and again saw 
his friend the liftman. 

No lady had visited Mr. Mildmay to his knowledge. 
She certainly might have called when he was off duty. 

Hence Falconer determined to watch again, and after 
the lapse of several weary evenings, he one night followed 
Mildmay to the Savoy, where, just before supper- time, 
he took a seat in the lounge and idly lit a cigarette. 

Ten minutes later Geoffrey saw standing at the head 
of the short flight of stairs the familiar figure of Madame 
Claude t, wearing a gorgeous theatre wrap. Her quick 
eye recognised Mildmay ; therefore she went to take 
off her wrap, and a few moments later joined him. 

From a distance Falconer watched them closely. 
Mildmay ’s greeting appeared the reverse of cordial, 
for on his face was an angry, morose expression. After 
a brief conversation, they passed into the supper-room. 


io6 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

where, in order to escape recognition, Geoffrey was 
forced to leave them. But he had established the fact 
of their secret friendship. 

Next evening when he went to Upper Brook Street 
he found Sylvia alone, her mother having gone to the 
theatre with madame. 

“ Isn’t it a shame ! ” she remarked. '' Madame 
Claudet has to go to Paris the day after to-morrow — 
on some of her horried banking business again. Mother 
has introduced her to her bank in Pall Mall, so that 
she has an account in London, therefore these journeys 
will be avoided in future.” 

Geoffrey, who had not allowed either Mrs. Beverley 
or her daughter to suspect his doubt concerning the 
handsome widow, agreed, and expressed a hope that 
the lady would soon return. 

Next day, having to be at Marconi House, he snatched 
off a few hours in the afternoon, and succeeded in watch- 
ing madame leave Upper Brook Street alone, and 
following her to Ryder Street, where she called upon 
Mildmay. It was very apparent, by the timid way 
she slipped into the doorway of the chambers, that 
she feared being watched. Why ? 

She remained there for about half an hour, when, 
emerging, the liftman hailed a taxi for her and she 
drove to Upper Brook Street. 

Geoffrey was perplexed why the mysterious Jules 
in Marseilles should be so concerned regarding madame ’s 
health. Hence he determined to watch her movements 
closely until she should leave Victoria. That night 
he did not return to Warley, but slept at his club, 
and at ten o’clock next morning idled unseen at the 
comer of Upper Brook Street, in case she should come 
forth. He had ascertained that she was leaving Victoria 
at midday. 

At about half -past ten madame came out alone, 
carrying her handsome gold-mounted handbag, and in 
Grosvenor Square she hailed a taxi, in which she drove 
to a bank in Pall Mall, in order, no doubt, to obtain 
money for her journey. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 107 

She remained within about ten minutes or so, then, 
re-entering the taxi, she drove back to her hostess’s 
house. 

A quarter of an hour later Geoffrey called to wish 
the gay widow au revoir, and Mrs. Beverley invited him 
to stay to luncheon. At about half -past eleven madame 
left for Victoria, her hostess going in the car to the 
station to see her off. Hence Sylvia and her lover 
were left together. 

Geoffrey Falconer had become disappointed and ill 
at ease, for the mystery concerning the widow still 
remained unsolved. 

Mrs. Beverley returned, and they had luncheon 
together, the young wireless engineer remaining all 
the afternoon. 

Just as they were seated at tea, Shaw, the footman, 
brought a card to his mistress, who glanced at it, and 
said : 

Oh ! It’s Mr. Elton I I wonder why he wants 
to see me ? Ask him in here.” 

^The man bowed, and a few moments later a tall, 
clean-shaven business man was ushered in. In a 
second it was plain that he was considerably perturbed. 

” Mrs. Beverley,” he said, glancing at Sylvia and 
Geoffrey, I am very sorry to disturb you with a most 
umpleasant matter. May I see you alone ? ” 

” Unpleasant matter ! ” gasped the South American 
woman. What do you mean ? Whatever you have 
to say can be said right here.” 

You have a Madame Claudet staying with you. 
You introduced her to me, and she opened a small 
account at our bank,” he said. '' Well — I may as well 
tell you that I have the police outside, and I am here to 
give her into custody ! ” 

Mrs. Beverley stood open-mouthed. 

” Custody ! ” she gasped. '' For what ? ” 

” She called at the bank this morning, and changed 
seventy-four thousand five-hundred francs in French 
notes for English notes. These were, at noon, sent 
along to the head office in Lombard Street, where 


io8 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

they have been found to be marvellously clever 
forgeries ! " 

“ Impossible ! ” declared Mrs. Beverley, utterly 
staggered. 

'' Alas ! it is only too true. The bank has lost 
nearly three thousand pounds.'’ 

Then Mrs. Beverley, having explained how her late 
guest had left for Paris that morning, refused to believe 
that she could be guilty of any such fraud. 

Here Geoffrey interrupted, and related how he had 
unconsciously endeavoured to pass a forged note at 
Tours, and he recalled to her mind the incident at the 
jewellers in Dinard. Both those circumstances pointed 
to the fact that the woman had taken from the purses 
of both Geoffrey and her hostess real notes, substi- 
tuting false ones, with the idea of watching whether 
they would be passed or not. 

“ I would like a word with the police,” Geoffrey 
added, and with the bank manager he left the ladies 
to recover from their sudden shock. 

In the library he saw the detective-inspector, and 
briefly related the mysterious messages received by 
Mr. Mildmay, and the circumstance of the electric 
motor and the locked room. 

Within half an hour a priority telegram had been 
sent by wireless by Scotland Yard to the commissary 
of police at the Gare du Nord, in Paris, to arrest madame 
on her arrival, while a visit to Mr. Mildmay ’s chambers 
revealed in the locked room a perfect plant for the 
reproduction of French and Spanish bank notes of 
various denominations, the most scientific and complete 
ever found in the possession of bank-note forgers. 

Two hours later, when Mildmay returned, he found 
himself suddenly in the hands of the police, and both 
he and madame — ^who was not a widow at all, but his 
wife who had been distributing forged French and 
Spanish notes all over Europe, and reaping a rich 
harvest — slater on received exemplary sentences at the 
Old Bailey. 


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109 


CHAPTER VI 

THE CLOVEN HOOF 

“ It should be quite a pleasant trip for you, Falconer/' 
remarked the little, middle-aged, well-dressed man 
who was one of his superiors, as they sat together in 
a room in the Engineering Section at Marconi House 
on a bright October afternoon. “The plant went 
out from the works at Chelmsford three months ago, 
and we have been advised that it has all arrived in 
Hungary, or I suppose they call it Czecho-Slovakia 
now, and it is lying at the station at Arad." 

“ I will do my best/’ replied Geoffrey, greatly 
delighted at the instructions he had just been given, 
namely, to proceed to Hungary to erect two complete 
one-and-a-half kilowatt stations for continuous-wave 
telegraphy and telephony. “ I have never been in 
Hungary, and it will, no doubt, be interesting." 

“ It will. I’d dearly like to go with you," laughed 
Mr. Millard, one of the best-known of wireless engineers. 
“ The sets have been purchased by the Baron de Pelzel, 
on behalf of the new Government of Czecho-Slovakia, 
and one of the conditions of the contract provides 
that we should send out an engineer to erect the 
stations." 

“ Will anyone go with me ? " asked Geoffrey. 

“ No. There is, I think, no need. I myself looked 
through the instruments before they were packed. 
All is in order. You can employ local labour. There 
are surely some quite good electricians in Hungary. 
The first station is to be erected somewhere near Arad — 
wherever that may be — and the other in some other 
part of Hungary. We thought you would like an 
opportunity to go abroad." 

Geoffrey thanked the chief of his department, and 
then, after receiving a number of other instructions, 
he went down in the lift and out into the busy Strand. 


no 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

Half an hour later he was at Mrs. Beverley’s. 

“ Hulloa, Geoff ! ” cried Sylvia as he entered the 
room. \^ere have you sprung from ? I thought 
of you down at Chelmsford with your uncomfortable 
old telephones on your ears, turning little handles 
very slowly, and listening ! Oh, Geofi, you look so 
funny sometimes when you listen ! You look as if 
your whole life depended upon it,” added the girl 
chaffingly. 

And so it does, dear. At least my bread-and- 
cheese depends upon it.” 

“ Why, the other day Colonel Maybury, of the Air 
Ministry, told me that your improved amplifier will 
probably bring you a comfortable fortune in royalties ! ” 

The keen, smooth-haired young fellow shrugged his 
shoulders, and replied : 

I only hope it will. We wireless men are never 
optimists, you know. We always look for failure 
first. Success surprises us, and bucks us up. When 
one is dealing with a science which is in its infancy 
one must first look for failure.” 

“ My dear Geoffrey, as I’ve said before, you are so 
horribly philosophic about things,” she declared with 
a laugh. 

At that moment her mother entered, and invited 
Geoffrey to stay to dinner en famille. The ladies, 
however, put on dance frocks, for they were due at 
Lady Waterden’s at nine o’clock. So about that 
hour, after Falconer had told them of his impending 
journey to Hungary, he saw them into the car and then 
walked to the comer of Grosvenor Square, where he 
took a taxi to Liverpool Street and caught the train 
to Warley. 

At the Works at Chelmsford next day he was handed 
a copy of a letter from the Baron de Pelzel, who had 
purchased the installations on behalf of the Government 
of Czecho-Slovakia. It was a private letter dated 
from the Schloss Nydk, in Transylvania, recalling 
the fact that all the plant had already arrived at Arad, 
and asking the Marconi Company to send their engineer 


Ill 


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to Budapest as soon as possible, where he would meet 
him at the Ritz Hotel and consult with him. 

A week later Falconer left London — after an affec- 
tionate farewell to Sylvia — and travelling by the Orient 
express by way of Paris, Weis, and Vienna, duly arrived 
at the Hungarian capital. The moment he entered 
the taxi to drive to the Ritz — that hotel de luxe over- 
looking the Danube — a great change was apparent 
in what was once the gayest city in Europe. The war 
had brought disaster upon Ae unfortunate Hun- 
garians, who, owing to the terribly low rate of exchange, 
and the difficulty of food imports, were now half- 
starving. 

As in the late afternoon Geoffrey went from the 
station along the wide handsome street half the shops 
were closed, and the passers-by were mostly thin-faced, 
ill-dressed and shabby. 

At the hotel a brave show of luxury was made, and 
naturally the charges were high — in Austrian coinage. 
The price asked for a room with bathroom adjoining 
was enormous, but when he calculated it in 
English money at the current rate of exchange it was 
about two shillings and sixpence a night ! 

He inquired at the bureau if the Baron de Pelzel 
had arrived, and received an affirmative reply. The 
Baron and his niece had gone out motoring to Szajol, 
a place on the River Tisza, and would return about 
six. He had left that message for Geoffrey. 

About half -past six a waitei came to Falconer’s 
room asking him to go along to the Baron’s sitting- 
room, which was on the same floor. This he did, 
and there met a tall, well-built, very elegant, browm- 
bearded man of about forty, with a round, merry, 
fresh-complexioned face and a pair of dark, humorous 
eyes. 

He welcomed Falconer in very good English and at 
once introduced him to his niece, Fran^oise Biringer, a 
tall, rather slim, dark-eyed girl, very smartly attired, 
who spoke to him in French. Apparently she knew 
but very little English. 


II2 


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Then when the girl had gone to dress for dinner, 
the two men sat down and discussed the business in 
hand. 

The Baron seemed an extremely affable and cultured 
man, as so many Hungarians are. He lived mostly 
in Paris, he explained, but since the war he had assisted 
his Government in various matters. 

“ I hope you will have an enjoyable time, Mr. 
Falconer," he went on. When I was at Marconi 
House they told me they would send out an expert 
engineer to fit both stations and get them going. How 
far do you think I can speak over the set they have 
sent me ? " 

" Speech should carry from seven hundred to nine 
hundred miles — ^perhaps more under favourable con- 
ditions, but Morse signals will carry very much further." 

The Baron seemed highly satisfied. 

" You see, my Government is greatly interested 
in certain mining enterprises, and it is my plan to set 
up two wireless stations on either side of Hungary, 
so that we can conduct rapid business from one zone 
of operation to the other, and also with Budapest 
when we so desire. But," he added, “ it is annoying 
that the plant should have been sent to Arad. There 
must have been some mistake. I went to Arad last 
week and saw the railway people there. It has already 
been passed on to its proper destination. But I do 
not expect it will arrive for a week or even 
ten days, so during that time I hope you will honour 
me by being my guest here, as well as during the time 
you are engaged in fitting the installation." 

" I shall require assistance," Geoffrey said. '' Do 
you happen to know of, say, two good electricians 
whom I could engage as assistants ? " 

“ I will inquire ," replied the Baron. “ No doubt we 
can find two good men who, during the war, were 
engaged in radio-telegraphy." 

Afterwards Geoffrey, well-impressed by the genial 
Baron, returned to dress for dinner, and later on took 
a perfectly cooked meal with his elegant and courteous 


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host and his niece. The young man found the pretty 
Frangoise extremely interesting. They discussed many 
things at table, new books, new plays, and, of course, 
the terrible havoc of the war. 

The Baron was pro-British in all his remarks. He 
deplored the ridiculous weakness of the poor old 
doddering Emperor Franz- Josef, who, as every one 
knew, was beneath the thumb of a wily adventuress, 
and with vehemence declared : “ We were always 

Britain's friends. We should never have opposed her. 
Look at our poor Hungary now ! Only ruin and starva- 
tion ! Until we can recover ourselves we shall be at 
the mercy of any of the petty Powers who make them- 
selves so conspicuous and obnoxious at the eternal 
pourparlers presided over by your Premier. We 
want peace, Mr. Falconer,"’ cried the Baron furiously. 
“ Peace, and with it renewed prosperity. But there ! ” 
he added. “ Pardon me ! I apologise. Frangoise 
knows that this constant casting of dust in the eyes of 
our poor starving people goads me to the point of fury.” 

Even though Hungary was in such evil case, and 
half the population were starving, yet at that hotel 
people — ^many of them war-profiteers as in London — 
dined expensively, danced, and thoroughly enjoyed 
themselves. To them it mattered not how freely the 
bones of the poor rattled, or how many children died 
daily of sheer starvation. They had money — and 
with it they bought merriment and ''life.” 

After dinner the Baron’s car took them down the 
Nagy-Korut — the Great Boulevard — to the Folies 
Caprice, where they spent the evening at an excellent 
variety performance. 

That night when Geoffrey retired to his room he 
was fully satisfied with the warm reception and 
generosity of the Baron, and charmed with the chic 
and verve of his pretty niece Frangoise, who seemed 
to have spent most of her life in Paris, where her father 
had an apartment close to the fitoile. 

Next day the Baron invited the young radio-engineer 
to have a run in the Mercedes, and the rather morose 

K 


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114 

Frenchman, Lebon, who drove, took them out to Tepla, 
a very beautiful spot with warm springs that have 
been visited for centuries by the Hungarian nobility. 
They lunched at the Sina-haz, one of the many excellent 
hotels, and ran back through Trencsen, where they 
pulled up to find the “ Lovers’ Well.” 

After an inquiry from the Baron, who alone spoke 
the Hungarian tongue, they discovered it just outside 
the village, within the confines of the ruin of a Roman 
castle — a well dug in the rock. 

The Baron and the peasant who conducted them to 
it had a short chat. Then Frangoise’s uncle turned 
to them, and explained in French : 

A most curious story this good man tells. It 
seems that centuries ago a young Turk of high rank 
and family offered a large ransom for his bride, who 
was in captivity in this castle. But the lord of the 
castle, Stephen Zapolya, demanded as the price of her 
release that her lover should dig a well through the 
rock. After seven years’ hard work the well was 
completed, and the spring is to this day called the 
“ Lovers’ Well.” 

With Frangoise, Geoffrey peered down into the 
pitch darkness, and saw that it was really cut in 
the rock. As they did so, their hands came into 
contact. Indeed, she grasped his instinctively as 
they stood together at the edge of the deep well. 

Then she withdrew her hand quickly with a word 
of apology, and ten minutes later they were in the car 
back upon the broad highway which led to Budapest. 

The autumn days passed very pleasantly. Living 
so much in Paris, as he had done of late, the Baron, 
apparently, had but few friends in Budapest. He, 
however, had much business to attend to in the daytime 
on behalf of his Government, hence Falconer and the 
Baron’s pretty niece were thrown constantly into 
each other’s society. 

She was a smart girl, full of a keen sense of humour, 
and possessing all the verve of the true Parisienne. 
She knew Budapest, of course, and acted as Geoffrey’s 


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guide in the city, but her heart was always in Paris. 
She regarded the Hungarians as an uncouth race. 

Her mother had been French, she told him one day. 
She had, alas I died two years ago. But she had 
induced her father to take the flat in Paris rather than 
remain in the wilds of Hungary. 

More than once Falconer wrote to Sylvia telling her 
of the society junketings in Budapest, while the city 
starved. Each night they dined expensively and 
went either to the opera, or to the Vigszinhas to see 
comedy ; to the Fortress, or the People's Theatre. 
They also went to the Arena in the Town Park, the 
performances at which were quite as good as in pre-war 
days. 

One evening as Geoffrey sat in the palm court of 
the Ritz with Fran^oise, she exclaimed suddenly in 
French : ” I think we go to-morrow or the next day. 
My uncle was with Count Halmi this afternoon, and 
they were speaking of it. All the wireless apparatus 
has arrived at Zenta." 

Zenta ? Where is that ? " asked Geoffrey, 
removing his cigarette, for the pair were alone together 
in a comer of the lounge. Fran9oise looked very pretty 
in a jade-coloured dance frock, for a dance to weird 
Tsigane music was to commence in the great ballroom 
in half an hour. 

Zenta ! Why, don’t you know ? Has not the 
Baron told you ? It is his estate right away on the 
other side of Hungary — ^near the Russian frontier. 
I confess that it is out of the world , and I do hope you 
will not be bored to death there ! ” 

No doubt I shall not ; I have my work to do,” 
laughed the well-set-up young Englishman, for he 
was really having a most enjoyable time. 

Hence he was not surprised when two days later 
his host, the Baron, departed for the Schloss Zenta. 

In the express between Budapest and Debrechen, 
on the line which leads out to the Polish frontier, the 
Baron, lolling lazily in the comer of the first-class 
compartment, remarked in English : 


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“ I hope, Mr. Falconer, you have not been dis- 
appointed with Budapest. Unfortunately I have had 
so many official affairs to attend to. We shall be at 
home at Zenta to-night. I fear it may be very dull for 
you, as it is far away up in the mountains. I only 
yesterday received word that all your apparatus has 
arrived there.” 

” What height is it ? ” Geoffrey asked, as he was 
concerned with the height of his aerial wires. 

” I hardly know,” the Baron laughed. “I’ve never 
tested it with an aneroid. No doubt you will. It is 
high, and that is why I thought it would suit you, 
because I’ve always understood that aerial wires for 
wireless are best on a hill.” 

” Certainly they are,” said Falconer, gazing out 
upon the beautiful panorama of stream and mountain 
through which they were passing. They were entering 
the most remote, but most beautiful, district in aU 
Hungary, that which lies between the High Tatra 
— a lovely mountain district known so little to English 
travellers, save those famihar with the Carpathians — 
and the Roumanian frontier. 

At evening they arrived at a small, picturesque town 
called Nagy-Kdroly, the capital of the Szatmas country, 
nestling between the mountains, and at once a powerful 
car took them for about thirty miles up higher and 
higher into a wild remote district, the very name of 
which was unknown to Geoffrey. Presently, just as 
the night was drawing in, the pretty Frangoise pointed 
to a high-up chateau perched on the edge of a steep 
rocky precipice, and said : 

” Look ! There is Zenta — ^at last ! ” 

It looked, as indeed it was, one of those ancient 
strongholds of the Hungarian barons who had for 
ages resisted the repeated invasions of the Turks. 

Later, when they arrived and the Baron showed him 
round before dressing for dinner, he found that it was 
a splendid old fortress, full of rare antiques and breathing 
an air of days long gone by, while at the same time it 
was also the comfortable home of a very wealthy man. 


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117 

That night as they sat at dinner in the long panelled 
dining-room adorned with many heads of stags and 
bears, trophies of the chase, the Baron raised his glass 
of Imperial Tokay and welcomed his guest beneath 
his roof. 

“ Here,” he said, ** you have a very historic old place 
which you are going to fit with the latest invention 
of wireless — ^the radio-telephone. A strange combina- 
tion, is it not ? All your boxes have arrived, and they 
are in the back courtyard. I am sorry that I was not 
able to arrange for expert assistance for you, Mr 
Falconer, but I have two very good electricians arriving 
to-morrow. My agent in Vienna is sending them,” 

And at the same moment Karl, the Magyar servant, 
in his brown velvet dress and big buttons of silver 
filigree, helped him to a succulent dish of paprika 
lamb, which followed the halaszle, that famous fish 
soup which is served nightly in all the wealthier houses 
in Hungary. 

” Have the engines and all the other plant arrived ? ” 
Geofirey inquired. 

“ Everything. Twenty-eight packages in all,” 
answered the brown-bearded man, while Frangoise, 
with her bare elbows on the table, glanced across at 
the young Marconi engineer, and remarked in French : 

” I suppose you will be horribly busy now — eh, 
M sieur Falconer ? ” 

“Yes, mademoiselle,” he replied. ” I have lost 
more than a fortnight already. But it has, I confess, 
been most enjoyable.” Then turning to the Baron, 
he asked : 

” Have you engaged any operators to work the set ? * 

The question, put so suddenly to De Pelzel, non- 
plussed him. He was compelled to hesitate for a few 
seconds — a fact which did not escape the alert Geoffrey. 

“Oh I how very foolish of me !” the Baron exclaimed 
in his suave, easy manner. “ I have been so terribly 
busy of late, and also rectifying the blunder of sending 
the boxes to Arad, that I quite forgot the necessity 
of a staff to work the installation when it is complete. 


ii8 


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I will at once see about getting some ex-radio military 
men from Vienna.’* 

For half an hour after dinner a gipsy orchestra, 
four swarthy-faced men in brown velvet, with dark, 
piercing eyes, and lank black hair, gave some wonderful 
music with their violins. Then, when near midnight, 
the man-servant Karl showed Geoffrey to his room — 
a big, gloomy, dispiriting place, lit only by two candles 
in ancient silver holders. 

When Karl had shut the door, Geoffrey instantly 
experienced a curious feeling of impending evil. Why, 
he knew not. He was there upon business for his 
company in that remote, out-of-the-world place, and 
his host, the Baron, was most kind and affable, while 
his niece was quite charming. Yet somehow as he 
lay awake the greater part of the night he became 
consiuned by a strange apprehension. 

At the Ritz, in Budapest, and also in the train, he 
had noticed on several occasions a curious exchange 
of glances between uncle and niece — or was it only 
his fancy ? 

Was an3rthing amiss ? He lay listening to the 
owls hooting in the great forest which surrounded the 
castle on three sides, and reflected deeply. Frangoise, 
he remembered, had during the past few days questioned 
him very cleverly, yet very closely, concerning himself 
and his family. Could there be any motive in that ? 
In the silent hours of that night he became haunted 
by dark suspicions, but next morning when he awoke 
refreshed and went out in the autumn sunshine along 
the terrace, which gave a magnificent view of the great 
Hungarian plain for many miles, all his apprehensions 
were quickly dispelled. 

Inwardly he laughed heartily at his own misgivings. 

At eleven o’clock he drove with the Baron about three 
miles into the forest to a large high-up clearing — ^the 
spot which De Pelzel suggested should be the site of 
the new statian Indeed, two new log huts were already 
built for the transmitting and receiving gear, with a 
remote control to the generator plant 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 119 

Geoffrey, looking round upon the dense firs which 
screened them on every side save to the east, was 
surprised that such a site should have been chosen. 
But next second he recollected that the Baron knew 
nothing of wireless requirements. 

“ To tell you the truth,” Geoffrey said frankly, 

I do not favour this spot at all. Results would be 
far better if we fitted the station somewhere else, for 
instance, near the terrace at the Schloss.” 

” I quite imagine it, Mr. Falconer,” replied the 
eminently polite Baron. ” But, unfortunately, my 
Government is desirous of possessing a confidential 
means of conversation between the two mining zones, 
and I have granted them permission to establish it 
here on my estate,” 

” And the corresponding station ?” asked Geoffrey. 

” I will explain the situation of that later — when 
we have decided upon this.” 

Falconer was disappointed. He saw that the aerial 
would be far too directional for the best results. 

” This evening,” the Baron went on, ” I hope your 
two assistants wiU be here. This car will then be at 
your disposal to take you backwards and forwards 
from the castle.” 

To protest against such a site was, apparently, useless. 
All that Geoffrey could do was to warn the Baron that 
the results were not likely to be too good. 

” Well,” he laughed, “I’ve bought the plant, and 
if I choose to erect it anywhere, I suppose I am at 
liberty to do so. You, Mr. Falconer, with your expert 
knowledge, will, no doubt, be able to make it work all 
right I” he said good-humouredly. 

“ Well — I’ll try,” Geoffrey replied, and on his return 
to Zenta he sat down and wrote a long letter to Sylvia, 
telling her his whereabouts, and how the material 
had been addressed to Arad wrongly, of his life with 
the Baron, and of the rather unsatisfactory site that 
had been chosen. 

He wrote four closely-fiUed pages, and having finished 


120 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

took it to one of the small rooms where Frangoise was 
sitting reading a French novel. 

The post goes out every night at seven o’clock/' 
she said. “ If you will put it in the rack by the front 
entrance Karl will see that it is put with the others 
this evening. Ludwig goes in the light car, and takes 
the letters into Deva. They go by road to Nagy- 
Kdroly to-morrow morning, and on by rail.” 

Next day two shrewd-looking Austrian engineers 
presented themselves as Geoffrey’s assistants. Both 
spoke French, and when Falconer questioned them he 
discovered that the elder of the pair knew a good deal 
about radio-telephony. 

They therefore set to work to open the huge boxes 
of apparatus which had been over three months on their 
way from Chelmsford. Each was marked, and they, 
of course, only unpacked one complete set, together 
with the aerial masts and wires. This work took three 
days, after which the whole of the plant was carried 
up by horses through the forest to the clearing which 
had been made near the top of the mountain. 

Day by day Geoffrey was out there with his two 
assistants, first erecting the aerial — one of the newest 
type — and then making an ” earth ” by sinking three- 
foot copper plates edgewise in the form of a ring, and 
connecting all of them to a central point. Each 
evening he was back at the castle, where he spent 
many pleasant hours with the Baron and his charming 
niece. The latter, indeed, took him on several occasions 
to see the most delightful pieces of mountain scenery 
while the Baron, hearty and full of bonhomie, was 
keenly interested to watch Geoffrey at work fitting the 
complicated-looking apparatus. 

Yet, curiously enough, Geoffrey’s strange feeling of 
apprehension had not passed. He could not rid himself 
of that creepy feeling which had stolen over him on 
the night of his arrival at the castle of Zenta. Why, 
he could not tell. 

He was surprised that he had no answer to his three 
letters to Sylvia since he had been there, but he recol- 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 121 

lected that Mrs. Beverley had spoken of going to Paris 
for a fortnight or so, to do some shopping, hence it 
was quite possible that mother and daughter had left 
London. 

It struck him, too, as somewhat strange that the 
Baron’s pretty niece should evince so much inquisitive- 
ness concerning his affairs. When they were together 
she frequently turned the conversation very cleverly, 
and questioned him about his friends in England. 

“I’m terribly bored here,” she declared in French 
one night after dinner, as she sat with a cigarette between 
her fingers and yawned. “ At last I’ve persuaded my 
uncle to let me go back to Paris. I shall return very 
soon.” 

“ Will you ? ” asked Falconer. “ I expect to be 
here quite another fortnight before we can get going. 
Then I have to erect the other station. Have you any 
idea where that is to be ? ” 

“ No,” she said. “ Uncle has never told me. But, 
no doubt, it will be a long way from here.” 

The secrecy concerning the position of the corres- 
ponding station also puzzled the young fellow. The 
Baron had, however, promised to let him know in due 
course, so he continued his work out in the forest, 
and gradually he assembled the engine, generator, 
and all the apparatus necessary for radio-telegraphy 
and telephony. 

One afternoon he returned to the castle unusually 
early, and was surprised to discover the Baron — ^who 
had not seen him — emerge from his bedroom and slip 
down the stairs. On examining his suit-case a few 
moments later he saw that the lock had been tampered 
with, and all his papers had been overhauled ! 

What object, he wondered, could his genial host 
have in prying into his private affairs ? 

By day the two Austrians working under his direction 
were ever diligent — ^both being excellent fellows, and 
very careful and precise in their work, which is most 
necessary in setting up a wireless station. At night they 


122 


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remained at the castle in quarters which the Baron 
had provided. 

So far from everywhere was the castle that the Baron 
seldom had visitors except on two occasions, when 
two gentlemen, one a short, stout, thick-set man, 
probably an Austrian, and the other a middle-aged 
Russian who seemed something of a cosmopolitan, 
arrived, and after spending the night, drove away 
again. 

From Fran^oise he understood that the Austrian, 
whose name was Koblitz, was a Government under- 
secretary, and the Russian’s name was Isaakoff, and 
that their visits were upon official matters concerning 
Czecho-Slovakia. 

b At last, one day when Doctor Koblitz had unex- 
pectedly arrived alone, the new wireless station in the 
forest was completed, and Geoffrey thoroughly tested 
the reception side, which he found gave highly satis- 
factory results, considering the screening from the 
trees. Both the Baron and Doctor Koblitz, together 
with Frangoise, took the telephones and listened to 
the signals from Elvise, Rome, Warsaw, Carnarvon, 
Arlington, Lafayette, Lyons, and other of the “ long- 
wave ” stations. Indeed, during the whole afternoon 
Geoffrey entertained them by tuning-in messages and 
copying them from dots and dashes of the Morse 
code. 

Both the Baron and Koblitz expressed their delight ; 
therefore that evening Geoffrey ventured to ask where 
the second station was to be erected, for quite ten days 
before all the remaining cases had been despatched to 
a destination of which he had been kept in ignorance. 

'' My Government have not yet decided,” was his 
reply. ” The boxes have been sent to Versec, close 
to the Serbian frontier. No doubt to-morrow or next 
day we shall hear what is decided. You said this 
afternoon that you have finished, and that all is in 
order to transmit — as well as to receive ? ” 

” Yes,” Geoffrey replied, “ all is ready. I have 
only now to put up the corresponding station.” 


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123 

Could you, for instance, send off a message for me 
to-morrow — say at noon ? ’’ 

Certainly,’' said Falconer* We are ready to 
run and give a test whenever you like.” 

” Excellent. Then we will go over in the car to- 
morrow and send out the test message — eh. Monsieur 
Koblitz ? ” was the genial, brown-bearded man’s reply. 

That night Geoffrey failed to sleep. Five weeks 
had passed since he left London, and though he had 
written to Sylvia several times, he had received no 
word of reply. If she had been in Paris, she was surely 
at Upper Brook Street again ! 

He was ignorant of the significant fact that each 
letter he had left for Ludwig to post had been taken 
by Frangoise and handed to her uncle, who had opened 
it and read it in conjunction with Karl, the faithful, 
man-servant. Afterwards each letter had beeen burned 
This had been repeated each time Geoffrey had written 
a letter, either to Marconi House, to his father at Warley, 
or to any other person. 

On Sylvia’s part she was still writing to the Ritz, 
at Budapest, whence she had had a letter from her 
lover, and they were retaining the letters expecting 
the young English engineer to return, as the Baron, 
unknown to Geoffrey, had promised. 

Next morning broke chill and misty over the Car- 
pathians, and at half-past eleven the Baron, accompanied 
by Falconer, Frangoise, and Koblitz, drove to the 
newly completed wireless station. 

Inside the transmission hut as they stood together, 
the Baron took out a slip of thin paper which he care- 
fully unfolded and handed to his companion, saying : 

” The call-signal will not be found in the official 
book.” Then added : ” As you see, the message is 
seven-figure code.” 

Geoffrey looked and saw that the call-letters written 
upon the slip of paper were C.H.X.R., followed by 
a jumble of figures interspersed with letters of the 
alphabet. 

The initial letter of the call showed that the station 


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124 

wanted was either in Spain, Portugal, Morocco, or 
Roumania. No doubt it was in the latter country. 

“ The call-signal allotted to this station is the 
letters O.S.R.U.,” the Baron said, after referring to 
his pocket-book. 

So the young radio-engineer at once sat down to 
the key and tapped out the usual preliminary call, 
followed by his own call and the call of the unknown 
station he wanted. 

“ Get them first by telegraphy, and then I will 
telephone to them,” urged the Baron excitedly. 

Within ten minutes Geoffrey obtained a response, 
and after sending the code message by telegraph, he 
switched on the telephone transmitter, and handed 
the microphone to the Baron. 

“ Hullo 1 Hullo ! Hullo ! Petresco ? Petresco ? ” 
he called, holding the transmitter close to his lips. 
Then in English he went on : " Can you hear me ? 
Is speech all right ? This is a test to you. Please 
tell me whether you have heard me distinctly. HuUo ! 
Petresco ? Hullo ! Petresco ? This is O.S.R.U. calling 
—calling C.H.X.R.” 

And he handed the microphone to Geoffrey, who 
at once repeated the query, and concluded it with the 
words always used in wireless telephony : “ O.S.R.U., 
changing over.” 

In a few moments there came a clear voice evidently 
at a considerable distance, saying : 

” Hullo ! O.S.R.U ? Hullo ! Your signals are quite 
O.K. Your modulation quite good. Congratulations ! ” 

He handed the head-’phones to the Baron, who, 
with great satisfaction, heard the speech repeated. 
They were certainly in touch with the mysterious 
station in Roumania. 

While the test was in progress Fran9oise stood in 
the narrow little room watching intently. 

” Really marvellous ! ” Mademoiselle declared when 
she herself put on the telephones and heard the reply 
again repeated in a clear, rather musical voice. 

Then, after another ten minutes, the Baron asked 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 125 

Falconer to switch off the generator and close down, 
as they would be late for luncheon. 

“ It does you very great credit,'" declared the owner 
of the great estate of Zenta. “ I never dreamed that 
we should be in such complete touch so quickly." 
And the man Koblitz also tendered his congratulations 
upon the achievement. 

Later in the afternoon Mademoiselle Fran^oise left 
for Paris, and Geoffrey shook her hand as she entered 
the car. After dinner Falconer smoked with the Baron 
and his friend until about eleven o’clock, when he put 
down his cigar and wished them both good-night. It 
had become apparent that the pair wished to be rid of 
him for some reason. Therefore he retired. 

Back in his great, gloomy bedroom he stood for some 
time at the window, gazing out upon the gorgeous 
scene of moonlit mountain and silent Carpathian forest. 
The attitude of the two men during that evening had 
become suspicious — the more so because the Baron 
had so constantly evaded his question as to the site 
of the second wireless station, and also the identity 
of the mystery station, " C.H.X.R." Who, too, was 
Petresco ? It was apparently a Roumanian name. 
Once again a strange intuition crept over him — a 
premonition of impending evil. 

A quarter of an hour later he removed his evening 
shoes and crept back again down the great oak staircase 
to the door of the room wherein the two men were 
in consultation. 

Bending he could hear their voices speaking low 
and confidentially. But they were speaking in Hun- 
garian, hence he could not understand a single word. 
Probably it was only politics they were discussing ; 
therefore, after waiting ten minutes, all the time in 
fear of the approach of Karl, he was about to return to his 
room when, of a sudden, he heard a few words in French. 

Koblitz was speaking. 

" Yes, I quite agree," he said. " Your plan is 
excellent. The wireless station must remain a complete 
secret. This young fellow’s lips must be closed. The 


126 


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two men we have here are both good wireless men, 
and are affiliated to our cause. Hence they can be 
trusted completely. Falconer we cannot trust — even 
if we attempted to bribe him, for he is an Englishman 
and would accept nothing."' 

I am glad you agree, mon cher” the Baron replied. 
“ At the wireless station to-morrow he will accept a 
drink from my flask — ^and then — ^well, the forest will an 
hour later hold its secret," he remarked meaningly. 

Geoffrey held his breath. Could it be possible that 
their plan was to poison him, and bury him in the 
forest, now that he had completed his work ? 

It was quite apparent that the station he had erected 
was a secret one, established for some illicit purpose. 

He listened again, but Koblitz was only congratula- 
ting his friend upon the success of what he termed 
“ the great scheme." 

Silently Geoffrey crept back up to his room. His 
mind was made up. By his natural intuition of impend- 
ing peril he had been forewarned. Hence putting 
on a pair of strong walking boots, he assumed his 
overcoat and let himself out of the great rambling 
place by a door he knew. In the moonlight he ascended 
the steep winding path which led to the wireless huts, 
and on arrival there, unlocked the house in which the 
transmission panel was erected. Then, switching on 
the light, he took up a hammer and deliberately smashed 
every one of the big glass valves. 

Not content with that, he also smashed every spare 
valve, and then destroyed the insulation upon two 
transformers of the receiving set, thus putting the 
whole station out of action. 

Afterwards he relocked the door and made his way 
back past the castle and out upon the high road which 
led down to Nagy-Karoly. Through the greater part 
of the night he walked, until at a small mountain village 
he was able to induce a peasant to harness a horse and 
drive him into the town. 

Before nine o’clock that morning he called upon the 
chief of police, and through a man who spoke French 


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127 

gave him a description of the secret wireless set, and 
of the dastardly plot to kill him and dispose of his 
body by burying it in the forest 

At once the police official was on the alert, for the 
Schloss Zenta, he said, belonged to a certain young 
Count Bockh, who was a minor, and at the university 
of Budapest. He had never heard of the Baron, who 
had, no doubt, established himself there unknown to 
its rightful owner, but pretending to the servants that 
he had rented it furnished. This was later on ascer- 
tained to be a fact. 

Within an hour urgent telegrams were exchanged 
between the Ministry of Police in Budapest and the 
chief at Nagy-Karoly, so that at noon, when the Baron 
and Koblitz put in an appearance at the railway station 
— intending to fly after finding that Falconer had gone 
and that the secret wireless station had been put out 
of action — they were at once arrested and sent by the 
next train under escort to Budapest. 

Later, after much inquiry, the police discovered 
that the pseudo-Baron — ^whose real name was Franz 
Haynald, a well-known revolutionist — ^had, with 
Koblitz and a number of others, formed a great and 
widespread political plot, financed by Germany, to 
effect a union with Hungary and Bavaria. Austria 
was to be overthrown, Vienna occupied jointly by 
Bavarian and Hungarian troops, and Czecho-Slovakia 
was to be blindfolded by creating a revolution in Jugo- 
slavia. The idea was, with the aid of Tzarist Russia, 
to establish a great “New Germany,"' which was to 
be more powerful than ever, and become mistress of 
the world. 

This certainly would have been attempted — for 
the erecting of that powerful wireless station was one 
of the first steps — had not Geoffrey Falconer acted 
with such boldness and decision. 

Haynald, with Fran9oise — ^who was the daughter 
of the man Koblitz — Koblitz himself, the servant Karl, 
and twenty others are all now undergoing long sentences 
of imprisonment. 


128 


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CHAPTER VII 

THE POISON FACTORY 

Geoffrey Falconer stood at the window of the big 
old Adams room at the Savage Club, chatting with a 
journalist friend, Charles — alias "Doggy" — Wentworth, 
of the Daily Mail. 

Before them lay Adelphi Terrace and beyond the 
Embankment and the broad grey Thames with its 
wharves on the Surrey bank, London's silent highway. 

It was the luncheon hour on a day in early spring. 
The trees along the Embankment, and in the Gardens 
below, wore their fresh bright green, not yet dulled 
by the London smoke, while along the Embankment 
the trams were rolling heavily between the bridges 
of Blackfriars and Westminster. 

The room in which they stood was familiar to 
Bohemian London — ^the world of painters, poets, 
actors, novelists, sculptors, journalists, and scientists, 
who lunch and smoke in the same great room with its 
portraits, caricatures, and trophies — ^perhaps the only 
spot on earth where a man's worth is nowadays not 
judged by his pocket or the estimation of his own 
importance. Confined to the professions, it is a club 
where as long as a man is a good fellow and has no 
side he is popular. But woe betide the member who 
betrays the slightest leaning towards egotism. 

The members, leaving the little back bar, had already 
begun to drift in to take their places at the little tables 
which occupied half the big common-room. The 
unconventional shouts of " Hulloa, Tommie 1 " " Hulloa, 
Jack ! " " Hulloa, Max ! " were heard on every side — 
Christian names and nicknames of men some of whose 
names were in the homes of England and America 
as household words, men of mark whose portraits 
greeted one every day in the picture papers. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 129 

Just as “ Doggy ” was about to turn aside with his 
guest, a friend of his approached the pair. A tall, 
lank man with a furrowed face, “ Dicky ” Peters, 
foreign editor of the great London journal, the Daily 
Telephone, was known to both, as indeed he was known 
to every journalist in London. 

“ Well, Dicky, what’s the latest ? ” asked Wentworth, 
a man ten years his junior, but who was among the 
most brilliant men in Fleet Street. 

“ Oh, nothing much,” laughed the other good- 
humouredly. ” Only that infernal Moscow wireless 
press. It gets on one’s nerves.” 

” How ? ” asked Geoffrey, at once on the alert. 

” Let’s go and feed, and I’ll tell you.” 

The trio went past the row of old leather-covered 
couches from the ” smoking-room ” to the ” dining- 
room,” between which there was no partition, and 
presently as they discussed a plain English luncheon 
which even peers as guests did not disdain — for every one 
is on equality in the Savage — Peters began to rail at 
the wireless reports from Moscow. 

” Well, Falconer’s a Marconi man,” remarked Went- 
worth. ” Perhaps he can explain.” 

” I don’t understand it at edl,” Geoffrey said. ” Of 
course I’m on the engineering side. I don’t know 
much about the operating side — except in experiment- 
ing.” 

” Well, I think the whole thing is most puzzling.” 

” How ? ” 

” Well, one day we get the wireless press from Russia 
and publish it. Next day we have an entirely different 
and contradictory version. And, oh ! the Bolshevik 
propaganda — ^well, you see it in many papers. Sub- 
editors all over the country are using no discretion. 
We get all the jumble of facts, fictions, declarations, 
but I never publish any This latest propaganda 
against Britain is most pernicious. In America they 
are publishing all sorts of inflammatory stuff against 
us regarding Ireland — all of it emanating from the 
Third International — or whatever they call themselves.” 

I 


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130 

“ The Bolshevik press news should be wiped out/’ 
declared “ Doggy ” Wentworth. “ No sane man who 
reads it ever believes in the glorious and prosperous 
state of Russia under Lenin ! ” 

" I agree,” said Falconer, interested in the conver- 
sation between the two journalists. ” I often listen 
: ' M.S.K.’ at night and read him, but his stories are 
of such a character that I wonder any newspaper 
publishes them. We never refer to it in our Marconi 
Press which we send out each night to the cross- 
Atlantic ships.” 

"Yes, but how about the revolutionary propaganda 
regarding Ireland ? We get a pile of it in the office 
every night,” said Peters. " I never publish it, but 
over in America they get it too, and I’m certain it does 
Britain incalculable harm.” 

It was at a moment when a wave of Bolshevism was 
sweeping across Europe, a hostility to culture and to 
intelligence which had, in Russia, brought about a 
terrorism which was assisted by a police system which 
left far behind it the ideas and the proceedings of the 
Tsar’s secret police. And those responsible for the 
chaos in Russia were, it was known, endeavouring to 
stir up revolution in Great Britain, and thus assist 
Germany in her defiant attitude towards the Allies. 

That night the young Marconi engineer dined at 
Mrs. Beverley’s, and sat beside Sylvia. Only three 
other guests were present, a well-known peer and his 
wife, and a prominent member of the Government, 
Mr. Charles Warwick. 

Over the dinner table, in consequence of some serious 
reports in that night’s newspaper concerning the advance 
of the Red Army in the south of Russia, the conver- 
sation turned upon the situation, Mr. Warwick express- 
ing an opinion that half the news concerning the Red 
successes was incorrect. 

" I agree,” declared Falconer. " Only this morning 
I was discussing the same subject with two journalists 
in the Savage Club. It seems that Lenin and his 
friends are sending out by wireless all sorts of untruths 


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131 

concerning our rule in Ireland — allegations calculated 
to incense other countries against us.” 

" Well, if that’s so, Geoffrey, why don’t you wireless 
people try to suppress them ? ” remarked Sylvia. 

“ An excellent suggestion ! ” laughed the smooth- 
haired young fellow. “ But I’m afraid it would be 
impossible to stop the wireless waves they send out 
from Moscow each evening. When you press a wireless 
key the waves radiate in every direction, and reach 
far and wide. There is no invention yet to suppress 
wireless signals, except to jamb them by sending out 
stronger ones upon the same wave-length. That can, 
of course, be done, but it would interfere with all wireless 
traffic.” 

” Somebody really ought to blow up the Moscow 
wireless station,” declared Lord Cravenholme, an 
elderly blunt man, whose wife was many years his 
junior. 

“Yes,” agreed Warwick. “ The sooner somebody 
puts an end to their lie-factory the better.” 

“ Britain’s enemies are always ready enough to 
believe any fiction alleged against her. And, of course, 
the crafty Germans are behind all these attempts to 
stir strife,” his lordship declared, poising his hock-glass 
in his hand. 

“ Well,” exclaimed Sylvia, “ I really think there’s 
an excellent chance for you, Geoffrey.” And she 
laughed merrily. 

“Yes,” added her mother. “If you could manage 
to stop it all, you would certainly be a public benefactor, 
Mr. Falconer. I read in the American papers I get over 
some very nasty things about you here — all of it emana- 
ting, no doubt, from enemy and revolutionary sources.” 

“Ah' Mrs. Beverley,” exclaimed the young Marconi 
man, “I’m afraid that such a task is beyond me. In 
the first place, nobody can get into Russia just now. 
Again, if the station were wrecked, Lenin’s people 
would soon rig up another. So I fear that we are 
suggesting the impossible.” 

Later that evening, when Geoffrey and Sylvia were 


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132 

alone together in the morning-room — the others being 
in the big upstairs drawing-room — the girl mentioned 
that the odious fortune-hunter, Lord Hendlewycke, 
was to take them by car on the following day to tea 
at the Burford Bridge Hotel, at Box Hill. 

"Oh, how I detest him ! " said the pretty girl with 
a sigh. " And yet mother is for ever asking him here. 
I’m sick of it il Wherever we go he turns up.” 

" Because your mother has set her mind upon your 
becoming Lady Hendlewycke,” he said in a low, intense 
voice. " Why is she in London — except to marry you 
to somebody with a title ? I know it’s a very horrid 
way of putting it, dearest, but nevertheless it is the 
truth.” 

" I know,” she sighed. " But I hate the fellow — 
I hate him ! I’m for ever having headaches, and 
pretending a chill in order to avoid meeting him. But 
he is so horribly persistent.” 

He took her in his strong arms and kissed her fondly, 
saying : 

" Nevef^' mind. Be patient, dearest. He will grow 
weary very soon. Be patient— /or my sake ! ” 

But at that moment the footman entered, and 
springing apart, they rejoined the others upstairs. 

Geoffrey could only remain for half an hour, as he 
had to catch his train from Liverpool Street. He 
was back at Warley just before eleven. His sombre 
old home was all quiet, for the servants had retired, 
and his father, was busy writing in his study when 
Geoffrey entered. 

Together they smoked for about a quarter of an hour, 
after which his father extinguished his oil reading- 
lamp and retired. 

Geoffrey, as was his habit before turning in, entered 
his wireless room wherein he had fitted that most 
up-to-date set — a bewildering array of apparatus — 
chief among which was his improved amplifier and a 
double note magnifier of his own design. 

He placed the telephones over his ears, and having 
switched on the seven little glow lamps or valves of 


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133 

the amplifier, and the two others of the magnifier, tuned- 
in one or two stations. 

“ G.F.A.A.G.'’ — a great airship to wireless men — 
was out upon a night cruise from Fulham, in 
Norfolk, over England. He soon picked her up, 
and heard her taking her bearings from the direction- 
finding station at Flamborough, on the York- 
shire coast. After which she spoke by wireless tele- 
phony to her base at Fulham, and then to Croydon, 
Lympe, near Folkestone, and to St. Inglevert in France. 

Afterwards she carried on a conversation with the 
air stations at Renfrew and Castle Bromwich. She 
was told by Flamborough that her position was thirty 
miles due north of Cardiff, going westward. 

Such was one of the wonders of wireless. 

His thoughts, however, were elsewhere. He was 
still pondering over those budgets of lies sent out from 
Moscow four of five times each twenty-four hours. 

He placed his hand upon the knob of his “ tuner,” 
and raised his wave-length to five thousand metres. 
Other stations were transmitting, but he heard nothing 
of ” M.S.K.” — the call-letters assigned to Moscow. 
Higher he raised the wave-length until, on seven 
thousand six hundred metres, he found that high- 
pitched continuous-wave note, which he recognised as 
the lying voice from the ether. 

He took up a pencil and began to write down rapidly 
in French a most scurrilous and untrue allegation 
against British rule in Ireland, intended for the anti- 
British press in America. 

Halfway through he flung down the pencil with an 
exclamation of disgust, and removing the ” Brown ” 
head-' phones, switched off, and went upstairs to bed. 

Next day, at the Marconi Works at Chelmsford, he 
discussed with several of his fellow-engineers the scandal 
of the Moscow Bolshevik propaganda, but each of them 
declared that nothing could be done to suppress it. 
Lenin and Trotsky ruled Red Russia, and certainly 
the tide of lies sent out broadcast into space could not 
be stemmed. 


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134 

Sylvia’s words constantly recurred to him. She 
had urged him to do something to stifle the pernicious 
propaganda against law and order in Great Britain. 
But how ? 

Many days went by. He was busy in the experi- 
mental laboratory up at Marconi House, and had but 
little time to devote to anything except the highly 
scientific problem which he was assisting three great 
wireless experts to try to solve. 

About three weeks had passed when one afternoon 
he happened to be in the great airy apartment at 
Chelmsford where various instruments were being 
subjected to severe tests before being passed as “ O.K.” 
— note-magnifiers, direction-finders, calling-devices, 
amplifiers, and all the rest — when, with the telephones 
on his ears, he heard Moscow sending out “ C.Q." — 
or a request for all to listen. Then again came that 
never-ending praise of Soviet Russia, which, under 
the absolute rule of a little group of men, mostly Russian 
or German Jews obeying the orders of Lenin — ^the 
new Ivan the Terrible — and his war minister, Trotsky, 
was, it was said, converting Russia into a terrestrial 
paradise. On the contrary, it was well known that 
Russia was a terrestrial hell, where torture was deliber- 
ately being used on a great scale, and with a cruelty 
that had never been surpassed, even by the Spanish 
Inquisition. The recapture of Kharkofi by Deniken 
had revealed a most terrible state of affairs, atrocities 
of which even the terrible Turks would have been 
ashamed And yet the Moscow wireless was inviting 
the people of Britain and America to rise and establish 
a similar regime 1 

As Geoffrey listened attentively, his ear trained to 
the variations of the sound of the signals of different 
stations, it suddenly occurred to him that the “ note ” 
was slightly different from that which he had heard 
and discarded on so many occasions. 

He called across to one of the technical assistants, 
and he also agreed. 


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135 

“ It’s probably due to some atmospheric inter- 
ference,” the latter remarked. 

Again the young radio-engineer listened. But it 
seemed to him to be a different note, though the wave- 
length was about the same. It was higher pitched, 
and just a little more difficult to tone. 

When any problem arose, of whatever nature, 
Geoffrey Falconer never rested until he had solved 
it. That was how he had invented his improved 
amplifier. He had all the patience, the disregard of 
disappointment, the dogged perseverance, and the 
refusal to accept failure which characterises the great 
inventor. In the days long past most inventors died 
in poverty. Now in the days of stringent patent laws, 
fortunes are sometimes made out of a new safety-pin, 
or a sweet-smelling hair wash. 

Though he carried on the important experiments 
both at Marconi House and at Chelmsford, and also 
at another station which had been established in secret 
not far from London, he nevertheless each night when 
at home listened in for ” M.S.K.,” and diligently took 
down all the wilful pervertions of the truth sent out 
by Soviet Russia. 

On four different occasions, while listening upon 
his own set at Warley, he became convinced that some 
new station had been set up in Moscow for the deliberate 
purpose of circulating the most glaring untruths con- 
cerning events in Ireland. The text of all the messages 
was now much more bitter than before. 

Time after time he sat back in his chair, utterly 
puzzled. 

Here was a dastardly and insidious attack being 
made upon the country by disseminating false news 
by wireless, and yet nobody was able to suppress it. 

One day, being up in London, he was re-entering 
Marconi House by the back way in Aldwych, and 
waiting for the lift, when suddenly an idea crossed his 
brain. It was only a vague suggestion, yet that night 
in the rural quiet of his home at Warley he listened 
in for Moscow, and succeeded in determining the wave- 


136 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

length accurately. It was neither the five thousand 
metre spark ” transmission, nor the seven thousand 
six hundred metre, but lower — four thousand seven 
hundred, to be exact. 

Evidently Lenin had established an entirely new 
lie-factory for Britain only. 

Night after night Falconer, after his return from 
the works, listened for Moscow — at seven o’clock and 
at nine-thirty on “ spark,” and at ten-fifteen on 
continuous-wave. The latter was, however, absent. 
It had apparently been cut off, and the new anti- 
British station substituted. 

Though Geoffrey saw Sylvia constantly, he said 
nothing to her regarding the problem. Often when up 
at Marconi House he met her at half-past five and 
they had tea at the Savoy or the Carlton, after which 
he caught his train back into Essex, there to spend 
the evening in calculating and devising all sorts of new 
” gadgets,” with the object of improving wireless 
telephony — ^the science which must, in the near future, 
revolutionise commercial communication. 

The difference in the strength of signals from the 
new station of Soviet Russia, as heard in his telephones, 
puzzled him intensely. As an expert he felt that there 
was something unusual — Whence, to an experimenter, 
of outstanding interest. 

Therefore, he set to work to determine, if possible, 
the exact location of Lenin’s latest wireless station. 
With that object he one evening travelled to Lowestoft, 
and at the direction-finding wireless station there 
beside the sea, had a long chat with the engineer-in- 
charge. The station is normally used by aircraft to 
locate their position if in any difficulty with fog while 
passing between the terminal aerodrome at Croydon 
to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, or other Continental 
cities. The two direction-finding stations worked 
in conjunction, one at Chelmsford and one at Pevensey, 
on the marshes between Eastbourne and Hastings — 
a triangle between which the sources of a wireless call 
can be plotted, and exactly determined. 


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137 

For an hour Geoffrey discussed the problem with 
Mr. Finlay, the engineer, who at once volunteered to 
assist. Then Falconer left, and two days later arrived 
at the Pevensey station, down upon the pebbly beach. 
Here, too, the engineer-in-charge was eager to render 
assistance 

Geoffrey and he were walking over the beach at 
the edge of the sea, smoking their pipes in the afternoon 
sunshine. 

*‘111 call you up from Chelmsford on Thursday 
night — if the mysterious station is transmitting then," 
Falconer said. “ Listen, and you will no doubt hear 
him on about four thousand seven hundred metres 
— a rather high-pitched note. If he is going I will 
call you up on Morse and signal * Forty-four.’ Ill do 
the same to Lowestoft. Then you can plot with Chelms- 
ford where he is located." 

** He may not be in Moscow at all," remarked Finlay. 
** It may be some disguised station." 

" That’s exactly my own idea. But we can, no 
doubt, locate him, wherever he may be." 

So on the following Thursday night at about nine 
o’clock Falconer sat in the direction-finding station 
at the Works long after every one had left, listening 
intently upon the four thousand seven hundred metre 
wave-length. He had waited in patience for about 
twenty-five minutes when at last there sounded a long 
shrill whistle, and the Bolshevik station began to 
poison the ether with its lies. 

For five minutes he listened. Then placing his 
hand upon the transmitting switch, he drew it over 
and spoke over the wireless telephone to both Lowestoft 
and Pevensey, giving the code- word, " Forty-four." 

" O.K." came the answer from both operators, and 
at once they began to make measurements upon 
the big maps in front of them. 

All three direction-finding stations, at Chelmsford, 
at Pevensey, and at Lowestoft were now engaged, 
by working with each other in turn, in determining 
the exact position of the Bolshevik lie-factory. 


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In each station shrewd, clever young men, with the 
telephones over their ears, worked the big ebonite 
handles of the direction-finder — a piece of wonderful 
apparatus in a square box with sloping top, and several 
dials upon which minute scales were drawn. 

The operator at Pevensey and the one at Lowestoft 
exchanged conversations in a jumble of numerals. 
Then Lowestoft called Chelmsford, and within ten 
minutes the position of the mysterious station was 
measured out upon the map, and Geoffrey, bending 
eagerly, found that it had been located at a point 
somewhere in the centre of Copenhagen, and not in 
Moscow at all ! 

The anti-British station was still working on, as it 
did every evening ; therefore, three times its bearings 
were taken, and each result came out the same. 

“ Thanks, Lowestoft ! Thanks, Pevensey ! Much 
obliged ! Geoffrey said over the wireless telephone. 
“ Switching off ! " 

He looked for a long time at the map, and with the 
officer-in-charge of direction-finding he discussed the 
matter for a long time. 

" In Copenhagen it should be easy to spot the 
whereabouts of the secret station. Indeed, upon a 
large-scale map of Denmark almost the very spot 
could be determined,” the direction-finding officer said. 

Geoffrey lost no time next day when in London in 
obtaining a large-scale map of Denmark, as well as 
one of the city of Copenhagen, from a shop in Fleet 
Street, and a fortnight later, with the aid of an eminent 
geographer — a friend of his father — ^he was able, by 
making careful measurements, to locate the secret Soviet 
station as being in the Raadhus-Plads. 

A week later, having been granted leave of absence 
from the Marconi Works at Chelmsford upon another 
pretext, he travelled to the Danish capital, where he 
put up at the H6tel d’Angleterre, in the Kongens- 
Nytorv. In his luggage he carried his own super- 
sensitive receiving set, all of which he had constructed, 
himself. 


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To the hotel personnel he made it known frankly 
that he was a wireless engineer, and on a table in the 
corner of his bedroom overlooking the square he set up 
his instruments, after hiring from a local garage an 
accumulator for his valve-filaments — namely, to 
light up the seven little cylindrical vacuum-tubes of 
his supersensitive amplifier. 

On the night of his arrival in Copenhagen, after 
dining alone in the big white-and-gold salle-d-manger, 
he ascended to his room and sat there all the evening 
with the telephones over his ears. He could hear 
the British Admiralty at working to Malta ; Paris 
working to Warsaw ; Carnarvon working to Belmar, 
and Bordeaux transmitting across the Atlantic. On 
that starlit night the ether was alive with messages 
by “ spark ” and continuous-wave being sent across 
the seven seas 

For over five hours he listened attentively, but all 
he heard was the usual commercial messages, most of 
them in code of various kinds. Then he took off the 
telephones and went out for a stroll along the Bredgade 
as far as the Esplenade, in order to refresh himself 
after his long and unsuccessful vigil. 

Next day he wandered about the clean busy streets 
of the Danish capital, idling before the shops in the 
Ostergade, the Kjobmager Gade, and the Amargertov, 
or reading newspapers in the cafes, the Continental, 
the Bristol, or Otto’s In spring Copenhagen is always 
bright and lively, and he found the city quite 
charming. 

At night, however, he returned to his vigilant watch, 
for the secret Bolshevik station was not now working 
every night. 

For five nights in succession he waited patiently, 
hour after hour, but though he listened to thousands 
of messages, yet “ M.S.K.” remained silent on its 
new wave-length. 

Geoffrey Falconer was, however, quite unaware that 
the adjoining room was occupied by a grey-haired, 
undersized little man, who had been on the quai at 


140 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

Antwerp when he landed, and having followed him 
to Copenhagen by way of Kiel, had taken up his abode 
in the next room. 

In the hotel the two men passed each other fre- 
quently, but Geoffrey was entirely unsuspicious that 
his movements were being so closely watched. 

He, however, as is the practice of most case-hardened 
cosmopolitans, always kept the key of his room in 
his pocket, contrary to the hotel rule of leaving it in 
the key-office. When one is at a hotel and keeps one’s 
key in one’s pocket, only the chambermaid’s or the 
manager’s master-key opens the door. Hence intruders 
are debarred. 

On the eighth night of Falconer’s stay his suspicions 
became aroused because he suddenly found the little 
old man keeping him under observation. At first he 
was in a quandary, but presently, after due considera- 
tion, he resolved to act with greater discretion. 

The Raadhus-Plads, as those who know Copenhagen 
are well aware, is in the centre of the city, and the focus 
of the network of tramways, just as is the Piazza del 
Duomo in Milan. Time after time Geoffrey had passed 
backwards and forwards across the spacious square, 
but he could detect no aerial wires such as would be 
necessary to transmit the anti-British propaganda 
into the ether. 

Each night he wandered into the square and gazed 
up at the many illuminated sky-signs upon the shops 
around, until he began to conclude that the bearings 
taken at Chelmsford must have been inaccurate. 

He had been in Copenhagen ten days when one 
night, while seated in his bedroom at about ten o’clock 
with the telephones over his ears, he heard the mysterious 
station start up, calling “ C.Q.,” namely, asking 
everybody to listen. 

And then on a pure musical note there was tapped 
out a message, alleging that Britain was doing serious 
injustice in Ireland — a message calculated to inflame 
public opinion. 

That it was close by Geoffrey detected at once. The 


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signals were too loud on the “ second intensity ” of 
his double note magnifier, so he cut it out, and read it 
loudly from one “ Q ” — or detector valve. 

He put down his ’phones, switched off, and leaving 
the hotel, walked again to the Raadhus-Plads. Around 
the square the well-lit electric trams were circulating 
slowly, while all around were the illuminated advertise- 
ments of motor-tyres, mineral waters, cocoa, and 
soap, a picturesque night scene beneath the clear 
starlit sky. 

Watching him unseen was his little grey-haired 
neighbour from the adjoining room in the Angleterre. 
The old fellow was, no doubt, a very clever watcher. 
As a matter of fact, he was Ivan Stromoff, one of the 
most astute officers of the secret police under the regime 
of the last Tsar Nicholas, now, of course, pressed into 
Lenin’s service. 

The secret police of Russia were ever corrupt, and 
they had now been suborned by the Bolsheviks to act 
in the interests of the Soviets as they had previously 
done in the interests of the Monarch. 

While passing across the Kongens-Nytorv — the 
King’s new market — the fcishionable centre of Copen- 
hagen, Geoffrey again realised that the little old man was 
following him. So during the following day he walked 
the streets of the Danish capital with the sole purpose 
of drawing on the old fellow who was keeping such strict 
surveillance upon his movements. Everywhere he 
went the little old fellow shadowed him. 

Therefore, at about ten o’clock on that evening he 
managed to elude the watchful old man, and taking 
a taxi, drove to the central bureau of police. He was 
taken at once to Marius Lund, the director of the police, 
and when alone with him, explained the object of his 
visit to Denmark, and asked that he might be given 
assistance in order to unearth the secret wireless station 
of the revolutionaries. 

Lund, a broad-shouldered, fair-haired Dane, at 
once became sympathetic, promising ail the assistance 
he could render. 


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142 

“ We in Denmark are always anxious to support 
the Allies against the machinations of Germany and 
Russia. So I will give you whatever help you may 
require. Already we have been advised of your 
presence here, Mr. Falconer, and I confess it has aroused 
some suspicion, because you had in your baggage some 
wireless apparatus.” And he laughed. 

Falconer explained all the circiunstances, how the 
bearings taken in England had shown that the Bolshevik 
transmission set was not in Russia at all, but some- 
where in the neighbourhood of the Raadhus-Plads 
in that city. 

” But had we not better obtain the aid of one of 
the engineers at the radio-telegraph station here ? 
Mr. Petersen, the chief engineer, I know quite well,” 
the head of the Copenhagen police suggested. 

In consequence an introduction was next day effected 
between the two wireless engineers, who sat together 
in the big wireless station at Lyngby, outside Copen- 
hagen, the note of which with its call-signal, “ O X. A.,” 
is well-known to every wireless man. There they 
thoroughly discussed the whole matter. 

” We experience no interference,” said the Danish 
engineer. ” But we use the six-hundred metre wave 
in transmission, while you say ' M.S.K.’ is under five 
thousand metres. Anyhow it is highly interesting, 
and we will certainly investigate it.” 

Together they strolled around the big busy square 
at noon, but their expert eyes could detect no sign of 
aerial wires. If a wireless station existed in that 
vicinity it was certainly extremely well disguised. 

Yet upon them both the little old man, who occupied 
the bedroom next to Geoffrey s, kept active vigilance, 
though that morning he was followed by a detective. 
It was apparent that by some means or other the 
Bolsheviks knew of Falconer’s journey and its object. 
That he was being watched was proof in itself that 
the station, though well concealed, certainly existed 
somewhere or other in the city. 

At the suggestion of Marius Lund, both radio- 


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143 

engineers remained inactive during the following 
three days, for the first point towards success would 
be, he said, to get rid of the silent watcher, without 
allowing him to suspect that he in turn was being 
watched. 

So the police called one morning at the hotel, and 
finding a fault with the old man s passport, ordered 
him to return to Hamburg, whence he had come. This 
he did with ill-suppressed chagrin. 

Hence the investigators were free to watch. One 
evening while Geoffrey could plainly read upon his 
own set in his bedroom at the Angleterre the messages 
sent out by “ M.S.K.,'" yet at the radio station, a couple 
of miles away, they could not be heard by the operator 
on duty, merely because of the difference of the wave- 
lengths employed. 

That night Geoffrey Falconer and his Danish friend 
sat outside the Bristol Cafe in the great square, for the 
night wsis quite warm and bright. As they gazed 
around at the brilliantly lit Place, the busy centre of 
Denmark’s capital, they were more than ever mystified. 

Only on the previous day Geoffrey had received 
from the engineer-in-charge of the direction-finding 
station at Lowestoft a report of a further test, and 
the bearings had not altered in the slightest. That 
secret wireless station, which was endeavouring to 
do so much harm to British interests and Britain’s 
prestige abroad, was somewhere near them — ^but 
where ? 

His companion confessed himself utterly perplexed 
as just before midnight they strolled homeward. 

Yet as soon as Geoffrey entered his room and switched 
on his receiving loop-aerial — a wooden frame three 
feet square, upon which was wound a number of turns 
of wire, and which took the place of wires out of doors — 
he heard the Bolshevik’s message being sent out strongly 
across the North Sea to England ! 

On the following night the young Marconi engineer 
determined to watch alone. He dozed upon his bed 
until midnight, then rising and putting on his overcoat. 


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U4 

he went forth to the Raadhus-Plads, which was at 
that hour almost deserted. 

He took a seat outside the Bristol, and idled over 
coffee and a cigarette until one o’clock, when the 
establishment closed. Then he got up and wandered 
around the square, not meeting more than half a dozen 
persons, for the trams had cecised running, and only 
now and then there passed a taxi on its way home. 

Rain began to fall in a slight unpleasant drizzle ; 
therefore, turning up his coat collar, he drew into a 
doorway in order to keep as dry as possible. 

Suddenly, just after two o’clock in the morning, 
two men and a woman emerged from a small cafe close 
by, that had been closed for a couple of hours. One 
man was carrying a suit-case which seemed very heavy 
for its size, and as the trio passed, Geoffrey overheard 
them talking together. They spoke in Russian ! 

Having realised this, Geoffrey followed them at a 
respectable distance through the deserted streets, past 
the Tivoli Gardens to the Central Railway Station, 
where the suit-case was deposited in the consignc. 
Geoffrey noted the case well. It was of dark-brown 
leather, and bore the initials, ‘'G.E.K.” 

Then the young woman left her companions and 
went in the direction of the Lange Bridge, while the 
men retraced their steps back to the obscure little 
cafe. 

Early next morning Geoffrey sought Marius Lund 
and related what he had seen, whereupon they both 
went to the railway station, and having interviewed 
the stationmaster, the bag was obtained, and on opening 
it with a skeleton key, it was found to contain several 
portions of apparatus for wireless transmission. 

“ Well,” remarked Geoffrey, when he examined the 
contents of the suit-case, ” I can’t see how they can 
transmit from that cafe. They have no aerial.” 

” We will investigate before long,” said the police 
director, closing the bag and relocking it. 

Within an hour Geoffrey accompanied him to the 
caf^, a dingy little place to which no one apparently 


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H5 

went. They had previously discovered that it was 
kept by a man named Vedel, whose nationality was 
inscribed upon the municipal register as German. 

As they entered, leaving four police agents in plain 
clothes outside, the man Vedel came forth, and behind 
him the second man whom Geoffrey had seen during 
the night. 

The police director demanded to know where their 
secret wireless station was situated, but they at once 
denied possessing one. 

“ We shall search this place," said Marius Lund. 
“You may as well tell us the truth at once." 

“ Search — and welcome," was Vedel's defiant reply. 

Hence, while the pair were prevented from leaving 
the premises, they searched the whole house and went 
out upon the roof, but found not the slightest trace of 
a wireless installation. 

They had drawn blank I 

In chagrin Geoffrey began to wonder what the police 
thought of the mare s nest he had discovered, when 
Vedel, believing that he was about to be arrested, 
gave himself away by drawing a revolver and firing 
a shot point blank at Geoffrey, narrowly missing him. 

In a flash the police agents secured and disarmed 
him, while Lund also ordered the immediate arrest 
of his companion — ^who gave the name of Kdbke — 
and both were hurried off to the police bureau. 

The wireless engineer, Petersen, was at once 
telephoned for, and together they made a second 
examination of the premises, when after nearly an hour 
they found in the cellar a concealed door which led 
into a second cellar beneath a courtyard behind the 
house, wherein stood a small printing office. 

In this subterranean chamber beneath the printing 
office they found a fine continuous-wave transmission 
set of one-and-a-half kilowatt power, together with 
its generator. Apparently the printing office had been 
established as a blind, so that the neighbours should 
believe the noise to be that of printing machinery. 

Then they searched for the aerial wires, but it was 
K 


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146 

a long time ere they discovered them. At last, to their 
great surprise, they found them very cunningly con- 
cealed behind and about an enormous sky-sign which, 
illuminated at night, advertised the merits of a certain 
brand of cocoa, a sign which Geoffrey had noticed 
nightly, never dreaming, of course, that the secret 
lay hidden up there. 

The two prisoners who were proved to be dangerous 
emissaries of the Moscow Bolsheviks, were convicted, 
and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for estab- 
lishing secret wireless against the laws of Denmark, 
the result being that the world has ever since been 
spared the dissemination of the poisonous Bolshevik 
propaganda. 

And the credit of its suppression was certainly 
entirely due to Geoffrey Falconer. 


CHAPTER VIII 

THE GREAT INTRIGUE 

“ Hulloa ? HuUoa ? HuUoa ? Hulloa, Croydon ? 
Brussels calling! cried Geoffrey Falconer one afternoon 
over the wireless telephone at the aerodrome just outside 
Brussels. “ It’s Falconer speaking. Changing over.” 

“ Hulloa, Falconer ? Yes,” came a clear voice 
through the ether. ” Changing over.” 

” Oh, it’s you, Heddon. Would you please ask 
Dennis to speak to me if he’s there ? ” said Falconer. 

” Righto ! Stand by, and I’ll try and get him. 
Switching off.” 

Falconer, seated at the operating bench in the small 
wireless office, the window of which commands an 
extensive view of the aerodrome, with the city of 
Brussels in the distance, still retained the head-tele- 
phones, and waited. 

About five minutes later he heard the strong con- 
tinuous-wave sent out by Croydon, and a moment 
later another voice exclaimed : 


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147 

“ Hulloa, Brussels ? Hulloa, Brussels ? Croydon 
calling. Dennis speaking. Dennis speaking. Over.'* 
Falconer drew over the transmitting switch and then 
asked Dennis, the pilot, whether he was bringing over 
the air mail in the morning. Receiving an affirmative 
reply. Falconer said : 

“ Do me a favour, old chap, and bring over two or 
three things for me. You can get them put on passenger 
train to-night if you’ll telephone to the Works at Chelms- 
ford for them. I want them very urgently to-morrow." 
And then he gave descriptions of two air condensers 
and a double note magnifier and a microphone, adding 
that the tests he was making at the new wireless station 
he had just fitted near Dinant, on the Meuse, were 
satisfactory, but he hoped to still improve them. 

Dennis, having written down the list, promised to 
bring them over by air next day, adding that he would 
be at Brussels just about one o’clock. 

Then Geoffrey rose, handed the telephones to the 
Belgian operator, and switched off. 

He had been nearly two months in Belgium, and 
had had quite a pleasant time. The Marconi Com- 
pany were fitting the new aerodrome at Bouvignes, 
opposite old-world Dinant, with a one-and-a-half 
kilowatt telegraph and telephone set of exactly the 
same pattern as the new one they had installed at 
Croydon. Bouvignes had been adopted as the centre 
of Belgian civil aviation, air lines having been arranged 
to perform daily services to Paris, Copenhagen, Berlin, 
Milan, and other cities ; hence it was necessary to be 
in wireless communication with the aerodromes at those 
places 

Only three weeks before Mrs. Beverley had brought 
Sylvia over to see Brussels, as she had never been there, 
and Geoffrey had for a week acted as their guide and 
shown them the sights of the pleasant little Belgian 
capital. Of course, during the greater part of the day 
he was away at Bouvignes, but he returned to Brussels 
each evening, and the lovers spent many happy hours 
together. 


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148 

Now, however, mother and daughter had gone on 
to Paris, leaving the young engineer to complete his 
work in preparation for the official tests before the 
new station was taken over by the Belgian authorities. 

So next day about one o’clock Geoffrey returned to 
the aerodrome outside Brussels, and asked the Belgian 
wireless operator the whereabouts of the Handley- 
Page. 

“ She was over Ghent when I spoke to her five minutes 
ago. She ought to be in quite shortly,” was the reply 
in French. 

So Geoffrey went outside and strained his eyes to 
the south-west until he at last saw a speck in the distance 
which each moment increased, until the giant machine 
approaching came gradually lower, and after making a 
turn of the aerodrome, landed gracefully against the 
wind. 

” HuUoa, Falconer 1 ” cried Dennis, a round-faced, 
boyish-looking fellow, as in his leather suit and helmet 
he climbed out of the machine. "I’ve got your gear 
all right.” 

They waited for the passengers to land, five of them, 
and chatted the while. Then from among the sacks 
of mail from England he pulled out a small wooden 
box, saying : “I went up to Liverpool Street and got 
it early this morning.” 

The customs officer asked what the box contained, 
whereupon Falconer, who was known to him, chaffingly 
said it contained cigars. The good-humoured Belgian 
only laughed, and shrugging his shoulders chalked 
it as ** passed.” 

That afternoon, having an^ii^cpected appointment 
at the Ministry of Posts and^H^^raphs, Geoffrey 
resolved to remaim^e nighLriiw^^^^ls. Therefore, 
he had taken a »rat Wiltshim^P^otel up on the 
Avenue Louise, ratfierThan at the Gi^M or the Palace, 
for in summer, both being down ini Ttfie city, they are 
unpleasantly hot. He kept his apjpointment at five, 
and then walking back to the hotel, ained, and set out 
for an evening stroll back down the steep hill into the 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 149 

city, where at one of the little tables set on the pavement 
before the Cafe Metropole, in the Place de Brouckdre, 
he took his cafe noir. 

Unknown to him, however, a slightly-built, thin- 
faced young man, who had been watching outside 
the hotel for nearly two hours, had followed him, 
and taken a seat unobtrusively near the table Geoffrey 
had selected, but inside the cafe in such a position that 
he could remain and watch. 

There is always light, movement, and gaiety on a 
summer’s night at that point of the Belgian capital, 
for along the broad pavement passes a perfect panorama 
of Belgian life. 

Geoffrey had been seated for about a quarter of an 
hour, and was idly smoking a cigarette when suddenly 
a tall, well-dressed, rather elderly man who was passing, 
caught sight of him, halted, and crossing to him, 
exclaimed in excellent English : 

Well, my dear Monsieur Falconer ! Fancy finding 
you here — in Brussels ! ” 

Geoffrey sprang to his feet, for instantly he recog- 
nised in the stranger a Frenchman named Henri Amelot, 
a radio-engineer like himself, who was attached to the 
powerful wireless station at Croix d’Hins, near Bordeaux, 
which the Americans erected during the war for direct 
wireless communication between the American army 
and Washington, and which had now been taken over 
by the French Government. 

He had met Amelot at Bordeaux about three months 
before, and he had been of considerable service to him, 
hence their meeting was a most cordial one, and they 
sat together for a long time, until darkness fell and the 
great arc lamps shone above them. And all the time 
the silent watcher sat idling over the Independance, 
but glancing at the pair furtively ever and anon 

Amelot told Geoffrey that he was in Brussels in 
connection with some newly-invented apparatus which 
they were about to test at Croix d’Hins, while the 
young Englishman explained the object of his visit 
to Belgium. 


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150 

“ Then your new Marconi set at Croydon gives 
wonderful results,” Amelot was saying. ” Your Air 
Ministry ought to be greatly pleased with it. I was 
listening to it at Le Bourget the other day. Speech 
was marvellously clear.” 

“Yes,” replied Geoffrey. “It is an exactly similar 
set that we are fitting at Bouvignes. My only regret 
is that Monsieur Marvaut, the Director of Civil Aviation, 
is absent from Brussels. He’s been away all the time 
I've been here, and there’s no sign of his returning yet 
— so his lady secretary. Mademoiselle Levie, tells me. 

“ Marvaut was in Paris,” said the French radio- 
engineer. “ I saw him about a month ago. He went 
afterwards to Marseilles. But you mentioned his lady 
secretary. I did not know he had one. His secretary, 
Charles Roosen, is with him. 

“ But Mademoiselle Odille Levie called upon me on 
the first day of my arrival in Brussels, and conveyed 
Monsieur Marvaut s regrets at his absence,” said 
Geoffrey. 

“ Ah ! ” remarked Amelot. “ Then I suppose she 
is another secretary.” And the subject dropped. 
Later, Falconer walked with his friend to his hotel, 
the Palace, and then continued his way alone up the 
boulevard to the Avenue Lousie, being followed by 
the silent watcher who had sat so patiently in the cafe 
reading the Independance Beige. 

Next morning at ten o’clock a waiter brought to 
Geoffrey the card of Mademoiselle Levie, and on entering 
the lounge a pretty, dark-haired, extremely chic young 
lady rose and greeted him merrily. 

“ I heard from Dinant that you were here, M’sieur 
Falconer,” the girl said. “ Last night I had a message 
from Monsieur le Directeur to say that he is returning 
to his country chateau on Tuesday next, and asking 
whether you could make it convenient to visit him on 
that evening. He is rather unwell, it seems, and his 
doctor has forbidden him to come to the Ministry 
at present.” 

“ Where is his chateau ? ” asked Geoffrey. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 15 1 

" The Chateau de Rochehaut, in the Semois, not 
very far from Dinant,” the girl replied. “ He has 
asked me to get his official car from the Ministry and 
take you there.'* 

“ It is very kind of Monsieur Marvaut," Falconer 
said. “ Please tell him I shall be delighted to visit 
him. I hope the wireless station will be ready for 
the official tests by Wednesday." 

" Very well," she said. " I have the car outside 
now. If you are returning to Dinant I can take you 
as far as Namur — ^for I am going there. The morning 
is delightful." 

Nothing loth, Geoffrey quickly packed his suit-case, 
paid his bill, and putting into the car the box of instru- 
ments which had come over from London by air, got in 
beside his extremely handsome companion. 

But the driver of the car, a smart chauffeur, though 
Falconer was ignorant of the fact, was the same man 
who had so closely watched his movements at the Cafe 
M^tropole on the previous night. The morning was 
indeed glorious, and the run out to Etterbeek, and 
through the beautiful forest of Soignes to Groenendael, 
and on by way of Ottignies and Gembloux to Namur, 
thirty miles distant from Brussels, was most enjoyable. 

Mademoiselle, bright and vivacious, was in excellent 
mood. Several times she had come from Brussels 
with messages from the director, and called upon him 
at the Tete d'Or Hotel, in Dinant, where he had taken 
up his quarters. Yet more than once it had struck 
Geoffrey as curious that the messages had always 
been verbal ones. And now it seemed strange that 
the invitation to visit Monsieur Marvaut had come 
through her, and not in the form of a personal letter. 

As they were speeding along into Namur, Mademoiselle 
suddenly turned, saying : 

" I expect you may have to wait for a train to take 
you on to Dinant. I have plenty of time — so I'll take 
you on to your destination." 

Hence he asked her to lunch at the Tete d'Or on their 
arrival, and they took their meal at a little table out 


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152 

on the veranda which overlooks the rock-girt river, 
a corner well shaded, where, seated opposite to each 
other, they both chatted and laughed merrily. 

" I saw you one night about three weeks ago at the 
Opera, inBrussels, M'sieur Falconer," the girl exclaimed, 
laughing. " You were in a box with two ladies, one 
was elderly, and the other was probably her daughter — 
eh ? You seemed very attentive to them — especially 
to the younger one." 

Geoffrey smiled mysteriously. 

" Well — I did not know that you were watching, 
mademoiselle," he said laughing. " They were friends of 
mine." 

" Your fiancee — eh ? " 

" How absurd ! " he exclaimed. " Whatever makes 
you think that ? " 

" Oh ! — ^well — from your careful attention to her," 
said mademoiselle, raising her wine-glass. " When 
a man is engaged he always has it written across his 
back. Women can conceal their love, but a man 
seldom." 

" Just as, I suppose, women delight in tears — eh ? " 

" Ah ! don’t let us be too philosophical. The 
weather is too good. Let's keep that for a dark and 
rainy day," she laughed, leaving her companion surprised 
and puzzled that she should have been watching him 
on that night when he took Mrs. Beverley and her 
daughter to the Theatre de la Monnaie. 

From the first this very smart girl had puzzled him. 
In the midst of his work over at the aerodrome on the 
opposite side of the river she had come to him once or 
twice with messages of unimportance. 

Suddenly, as they sat together over their dessert 
and liqueurs, Geoffrey recollected Amelot’s words, 
and asked : 

" Where is Monsieur Roosen ? " 

" Roosen ? " she echoed in rather a blank voice, 
gazing at her companion across the table. He noticed 
that her countenance changed. But it was only for 
a moment. " Oh ! you mean the — the other secretary 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 153 

who always travels with Monsieur le Directeur. Ah ! 
I do not know, m’sieur. He is away." 

Her confused attitude when he had unexpectedly 
mentioned Roosen’s name struck him as distinctly 
curious. Mademoiselle Odille was very charming, 
it was true, but she was somewhat of an enigma. 

Presently she put on her gloves, and rose. 

" Thank you, monsieur, for a very excellent dejeuner,'* 
she said. “ And now I must leave you to your wires 
and bewildering apparatus, and get back to Namur 
and on to Brussels." 

"You must come and see the official tests on Wednes- 
day, mademoiselle. No doubt you will like to hear 
the wireless telephone," he said. 

" I shall. I’m intensely interested," she declared. 
" But remember on Tuesday I will meet you here at 
about seven and take you over to the Chateau de 
Rochehaut." 

And she got into the car and drove away. 

Geoffrey telephoned over to the aerodrome to send 
the service car over for the box of apparatus, and when 
it arrived, he drove across the river and through the 
ancient village of Bouvignes. The old place, sur- 
mounted by the ancient ruins of Creve Coeur, the 
castle where the Three Ladies of Creve Coeur, sole 
survivors of the garrison besieged by the Due de Nevers 
in 1554, hurled themselves from the tower to death 
in the eyes of their French conquerors, was quiet and out 
of the world. But Geoffrey was much preoccupied 
as the car tore through the dusty village and away 
up to the plain, where the great new aviation ground 
was being constructed. 

On one side stood the row of up-to-date hangars, 
with all the latest inventions of British and French 
aviation, while on the other, facing it, rose the aerial 
wires on eighty- feet poles temporarily erected, for the 
lattice masts were in process of manufacture. 

In two long army huts, situated a short distance 
from each other, the wireless office had been established. 
One of them housed the generator and transmitting 


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154 

gear, while in the other was the operating key and 
reception set. To the latter hut Geoffrey went, and 
there, with the assistance of a Belgian wireless operator, 
he unpacked the double-note magnifier and condensers 
which had travelled by air from Croydon 

Then throughout the remainder of the afternoon 
the keen young engineer was engaged in setting them 
up upon the operating bench. With many patient 
tests he listened-in constantly for various stations of 
between nine hundred and sixteen hundred metres. 
The small oblong box, on the ebonite top of which were 
fixed two little vacuum tubes which shone brightly 
when current was passed through them — the piece of 
apparatus used in conjunction with the seven- 
valve amplifier — magnified the weakest signal to such 
an extent that the telephones could hardly be borne 
upon his ears. 

He had another there, but it somehow did not give 
such good results as the one he had just requisitioned 
from Chelmsford. As a matter of fact, it was one of 
a rather newer design, for wireless apparatus is every 
week improving. And so rapid is the advance of radio 
discoveries that much of the latest experimental 
apparatus to-day will six months hence be relegated 
to the scrap-heap. 

Through the whole afternoon he worked on patiently, 
joining up the receiving circuit of many wires, the 
transmission side being already in running order. 
Only three days before he had spoken over the radio- 
telephone to Croydon, Lympe, Pulham in Norfolk, 
Le Bourget, and Cologne. Each test gave excellent 
results, even though the atmospheric conditions were 
none too good. 

So he had every hope of the official tests being satis- 
factory. As a loyal and trusted servant of that 
wonderful organisation, the Marconi Company, he 
had worked hard and done his level utmost to make 
the Bouvignes station a credit to his employers. Hence 
he was most anxious that on the great day when the 
^nal tests were made everything should go right. 


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155 

and that signals by continuous-wave telegraphy, 
direction-finding, and radio- telephony should be equally 
satisfactory. 

He was listening to Paris transmitting to Bucharest, 
reading the commercial messages, and gazing through 
the small window of the Army hut away across the 
grass-covered aerodrome to where, below, the winding 
Meuse lay bathed in the soft evening light. Still 
listening, he raised his wave-length until he heard 
the peculiar arc note of N.S.S. — ^which is Annapolis 
in the United States — sending its time signals, for it 
wanted a minute to five o'clock. Having compared 
the time with the big round clock above the bench 
he reduced his wave-length to one thousand metres, 
when suddenly he heard the shrill high-pitched note 
of a continuous-wave transmitter which sounded as 
though it were in the near vicinity. 

It was calling S.R.4. repeatedly, without giving its 
own call-sign. But as the wireless station being cSled 
did not appear in the official register at his elbow, he 
took it to be some private station and disregarded it. 

At that moment Captain Hanateau, who was in charge 
of the new aerodrome, entered the hut, saying in good 
English : 

“ Here is a telegram for you, Meester Falconer." 

Geoffrey thanked him, tore open the message, but 
as he read it, he held his breath in anxiety and astonish- 
ment. His heart stood still. 

It was from Mrs. Beverley, dated from the Grand 
Hotel, in Paris, asking whether Sylvia was with him. 
Four days before she had suddenly packed a small 
dressing-case during her mother’s absence, and left 
the hotel, leaving behind a note stating that in conse- 
quence of an urgent telegram from Geoffrey she had 
gone back to Brussels and would write. 

Geoffrey had sent no telegram ! What could have 
happened ? 

The Captain saw that the news distressed the young 
radio-engineer, and expressed his regret if the message 
was disconcerting. 


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156 

“Yes, it is,” replied the young man as he removed 
the telephones from his ears and re-read the long 
message. “ Is the car in use ? I must go to Brussels 
at once.” 

“You can have it, of course. I’ll go and order it 
for you.” 

Therefore, a quarter of an hour later Geoffrey was 
speeding back over the dusty road to Brussels. On 
arrival his fet inquiry was at the Palace Hotel, where 
Sylvia had stayed with her mother. Nobody, however, 
had seen her there since her departure for Paris. He 
drove up the boulevard to Wiltshire’s, and there made 
similar inquiry, but to no purpose. To other places 
he went that night, making diligent inquiry every- 
wher e, and then he drove out to the aerodrome, for she 
had been with him there once or twice. But no trace 
could he discover of her. 

So at eleven o’clock he sent a telegram to her mother 
saying that he had not seen her, and that apparently 
she had not come to Brussels. He added that he had 
sent her no telegram. 

Sylvia, to whom he was so devoted, was missing ! 
But why ? 

Just before midnight, so perturbed had he become, 
that he went to the Bureau of Police, and there saw 
Monsieur Guiette, the well-known Belgian chef de 
la SHrete. To him he told the story, after explaining 
who he was. The official heard him patiently, and 
promised to have some inquiries made. He suggested, 
however, that inquiries should be also made in Paris, 
as perhaps the young lady had not left for Brussels 
after all. 

“ She may have gone to London with some motive 
known only to herself,” Monsieur Guiette suggested. 

“ But the telegram which purported to have been 
sent by me must have been despatched from Brussels,” 
urged Falconer. 

“ Agreed, monsieur, but that telegram does not 
appear to have been seen. The young lady herself 


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157 

says that she received a message from you. She 
evidently did not leave it for her mother to see.'' 

At two o’clock next morning Geoffrey was in the 
express for Paris, where he arrived at breakfast time, 
and in frantic haste sought Mrs. Beverley. 

" I can’t think what can have happened,” she said 
in great distress. ” The other morning I went out to 
Armenonville with my friend, Mrs. Bridges, but Sylvia 
could not come, as she had an appointment at her 
dressmaker, Martin’s, in the Rue de la Paix. When 
we returned at one o’clock we found that she had gone, 
leaving this note.” 

Geoffrey read the scribbled note of his well-beloved, 
which explained how soon after her mother had gone 
she received a wire from him urging her to come to 
Brussels at once, as he was in a great difficulty, so she 
had caught the next train. 

Falconer stood staggered. He had sent no telegram, 
and he certainly was in no difficulty. 

“It is curious that she did not leave the telegram 
for you to see,” remarked the young radio-engineer. 

” She forgot it, I suppose,” replied the mother. 

” True, but it may be that she did not go to Brussels 
at all ! The police will probably assist us, though 
they are never very anxious to help when people leave 
home of their own accord.” 

” Oh, do go and see them, Geoffrey. Do go ! ” 
Mrs. Beverley implored, for she was in a terribly agitated 
state of mind. She had inquired of the servants at 
Upper Brook Street, but they had seen nothing of 
Miss Sylvia. 

Geoffrey, spurred to activity by his deep affection 
for the girl, took a taxi at once to the Prefecture of 
Police, and a detective was detailed to go with him 
to the Gare du Nord and there prosecute inquiries. 
From the stationmaster they learnt that the person 
who had booked passengers by the Brussels express 
on the morning of Sylvia’s departure was a certain 
Mademoiselle Le Grelle. She was also on duty at the 
booking-office at that moment ; therefore, they at once 


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«S8 

sought her, and the detective closely questioned her 
as to whether the young English lady, whom Geoffrey 
described, had taken a ticket for Brussels on the 
morning in question. 

Mademoiselle reflected for a few moments, and 
then said : 

"Yes, I recollect quite well. A young English 
lady asked me the quickest route to Brussels. I told 
her that the quickest was by Maubeuge, but the direct, 
without change, was by Amiens and Valenciennes. 
She chose the later route. The lady I mean wore a 
long pale-grey cloak and a small hat trimmed with 
blue. She was the only girl from Paris by that train." 

" It was Sylvia ! " gasped Falconer. " She has a 
grey cloak. Then she did go to Brussels — after all ! " 

" Apparently, m’sieur," remarked the detective. 
"It is certainly for the Brussels police to inquire at 
once whether she arrived there." 

Back at the Grand Hotel he related to Mrs. Beverley 
Mademoiselle Le Grelle's statement, her description 
of her dress, and the small dressing-case she carried. 

" Well, Geoffrey," exclaimed the anxious widow 
"I’m at my wits’ ends to know what to do, or 
how to act. My girl has disappeared. Surely she had 
no secret appointment with anybody ? " 

" I feel certain she had not," declared Falconer. 
" There’s some deep plotting at work somewhere. Of 
that I’m absolutely convinced. But we now have 
the first clue to her, and we must follow it up without 
a moment’s delay." 

" Yes, I agree," said Mrs. Beverley, standing at the 
window of her private sitting-room, which looked out 
upon the busy boulevard. " We at least know that 
she actually left for Brussels. And if she did — then 
she went there to meet you." 

" But I sent her no urgent telegram ! I wrote to 
her about a week ago saying that I expected to be back 
home in ten days — after the ofiicial tests were through." 

It was then about one o’clock, so Falconer ate a hurried 
lunch with Sylvia’s mother down in the big restaurant, 


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159 

and at three o’clock returned to Brussels. He was not 
a man to allow the grass to grow under his feet, for again 
before eleven o’clock — ^while Mrs. Beverley elected to 
wait for news of her daughter in Paris — ^he was closeted 
once more with the famous detective, Monsieur Guiette. 

The astute, bald-headed little man heard him 
through, nodding ever and anon, until at last, he 
exclaimed : 

“ Bien ! M’sieur Falconer. I will have every inquiry 
made to-morrow, and will send you word to — ^where ? ” 

Geoffrey hesitated. He was in the midst of the 
serious wireless tests, and had arranged with other 
stations to listen-in for his speech. 

Oh, it will be best to telephone to me at the Tete 
d’Or at Dinant, or to the new aerodrome at Bouvignes,” 
he said. 

And then he took his hat, and departing, ascended 
the hill to the Avenue Louise, where he spent a sleepless 
night at the hotel. 

Sylvia, his beloved Sylvia, was missing ! Had 
she fallen victim to some evil and cleverly conceived 
plot ? In the dark hours of the night he became 
seized by all sorts of terrible apprehensions. That 
false telegram sent from Belgium showed a distinct 
malice aforethought. She had, without doubt, fallen 
into the hands of enemies. 

But where ? 

Unable to sleep, he rose, opened the window, and 
gazed forth upon the well-lit leafy avenue, so gay and 
brilliant by day, but now entirely silent save for the 
soft rustling of the leaves. It was three o’clock in the 
morning, and he had travelled many miles to and fro 
to France since last he had slept. 

Sylvia’s disappearance was a mystery, deep and 
inscrutable. 

Without some strong motive, such as the receipt 
of the telegram of distress, she would certainly never 
have left her mother and travelled so hastily back 
to Brussels. 

For over an hour he sat at the open window trying 


i6o TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

to solve the problem, and hoping that Monsieur Guiette's 
inquiries would have some result. She would certainly 
have to show her passport at the frontier, where a 
register would be kept. 

Day broke, but he did not return to bed. At five 
he dressed, and then, after his coffee, he strolled 
anxiously down the Montagne de la Cour in the morning 
sunshine towards the Bourse, waiting for midday, 
when he had arranged to call again at the Prefecture, 
and hear the result of the inquiries at the frontier. 

Noon came at last, and he again sat in Monsieur 
Guiette's dull drab room. 

“ Well, m’sieur," exclaimed the bald-headed little 
official, “ it seems that mademoiselle, the South Ameri- 
caine, left Paris as you allege, travelled by the train 
you mention, and showed her passport at the frontier. 
She told the passport officer that she was going to the 
Palace Hotel here, but evidently on arrival changed 
her mind. Then," he added, " she was noted by the 
police at the barrier when she arrived, and was seen to 
be met by somebody — a woman." 

" Met by a woman ? " 

"Yes. Here our information becomes a little 
hazy," replied the great detective. " One witness 
says that the woman outside the barrier rushed up to 
her and gave her some message, while another witness, 
the collector of tickets, declares that it was a little 
old man who speaks English, and sometimes acts as 
guide, who met her." 

" But what happened then ? " exclaimed Geoffrey 
bewildered. 

" Both persons tell the same story, that a car was 
in waiting, and that the young lady entered it very 
hurriedly, apparently much upset at what had been 
told her, and was driven away." 

" Driven away into the unknown — eh ? " 

" Exactly, m’sieur " 

" And how shall we now follow her ? " 

Monsieur Guiette raised his shoulders, and after a 
moment s silence, answered : 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS i6i 

" The young lady has simply disappeared. We 
have had in the years of my service, both before the 
war and since, a number of such cases of English and 
American ladies being lost in Belgium. But such cases 
are always difficult to deal with. Girls have lovers — 
secret lovers — so very often. And when at last traced 
they are always highly indignant — and never tell us 
the truth. Ah I m sieur, when one deals with love 
one is always mystified.” 

” But in the present case I am convinced that Miss 
Beverley has fallen victim to some plot. She received 
a telegram purporting to have come from myself, 
whereas I sent her no message. She obeyed my wish, 
and on arrival here was given a false message, to which 
she instantly responded. 

” Yes, m’sieur ; I quite agree. But we cannot 
go further. How can we ? ” asked the famous 
commissary. 

” I certainly think we ought to. A lady has been 
enticed to Brussels by a false telegram, and it is the 
duty of the police to follow up the clue which I have 
supplied ! ” exclaimed Geoffrey in indignation at the 
apparent reluctance of Guiette to carry the inquiry 
further. 

” Please, do not be distressed,” said the famous 
detective pleasantly. ” I have already given orders 
that the inquiries are to be pushed forward in every 
quarter. The case interests me personally. And,” 
he added, “ I entirely agree with you. There is some 
very deep-laid plot, otherwise that urgent telegram 
would never have been forged.” 

Geoffrey was now torn between love and duty. 
From the Prefecture he at once walked to the Place 
de la Monnaie, and from the central telegraph office 
despatched a long message to the missing girls mother. 
He urged her to wait in patience, as Sylvia was known 
to be in Belgium, and all inquiries were being 
instituted. 

Afterwards he lunched at the Taverne Joseph, close 
to the Bourse, and later was compelled to take train 

L 


1 62 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

back to Dinant, leaving the further inquiries in the 
hands of the Brussels police. 

That evening, with faint heart, he returned to the 
wireless office at the aerodrome and tried to continue 
his work, tuning up the wireless set ready for the official 
tests. But it was in vain. He was, very naturally, 
thinking more of Sylvia than of the elaborate and 
highly-efficient apparatus under his care, notwithstand- 
ing the fact that it represented the latest development 
of the Marconi Company’s system of instant communi- 
cation, and was, therefore, of special interest. 

Next day was Tuesday. At first he resolved not to 
keep his appointment with Mademoiselle Levie, who 
was to take him to see Monsieur Marvaut at his country 
house on the Semois. Yet Marvaut was the director 
of the civil aviation, and it was his duty to the Company 
to see him, if only for an hour. He had told Monsieur 
Guiette this, and promised to be back in Bouvignes 
for the test next morning, so that he could be rung up 
from Brussels. 

Torn by stress of apprehension he managed to control 
himself sufficiently to meet Mademoiselle Odille when 
about seven o’clock in the evening she drove up before 
the Tete d’Or, in Dinant to keep her appointment. 
The thin-faced watcher was again driving. Meeting 
Geoffrey she laughed merrily, and asked : 

Could we have a more glorious evening ? It 
has been perfect ever since we left Brussels.” 

” Won’t you come in for a moment, mademoiselle ? ” 
Falconer asked. 

“No, thanks. We're late now,” she said. ” I 
promised monsieur to get you to the chateau before 
dark. Come, get in.” 

So Falconer got in beside her, and a few moments 
later they were speeding along the narrow, old-world 
streets of Dinant, past the tall Roche-^-Bayard, a 
rock in the riverside road, and on through the charming 
little village of Anseremme. Then by the winding 
road through beautiful country they went by way of 
Malvoisin and Monceau, down into the Semois valley. 


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163 

one of the most picturesque spots in southern Belgium, 
that country now remote and still undisturbed as it 
was before the Hun invader swept through it with 
fire and sword on his way to Brussels. 

They had left the river and passed through a great 
dark forest when, in the falling darkness, the young 
man who drove the car — the same person who had 
watched Geoffrey in the Caf6 M^tropole — suddenly 
turned into a well-kept side road which led to a large 
country mansion, the Chateau de Rochehaut. 

The door stood open as they pulled up, and on 
alighting, mademoiselle conducted him through a 
large but well-lit entrance-hall, upstairs to a small, 
well-furnished room on the first floor, where she left 
him, saying that she would go and fetch Monsieur 
Marvaut. The heavy curtains of purple silk damask 
were drawn, and the place presented a more cosy aspect 
than is usual in Belgian houses. 

Suddenly the door reopened and Geoffrey stood 
amazed, for he met Sylvia face to face 1 

Both uttered exclamations of intense surprise, and 
both asked questions at the same moment. 

" How came you here, dear ? asked Falconer 
eagerly. “ Why, the police are hunting for you 
everywhere." 

" I know," exclaimed a big, thick-set man who had 
followed the girl into the room, and was grinning evilly. 
" And the police will never find either of you." 

Who are you — and what do you mean ? " Geoffrey 
demanded quickly. 

" I mean what I say ! " was the man's defiant reply. 

" I have met you somewhere before," remarked 
Falconer much puzzled, while the girl, who seemed 
half dead with fright, clung to her lover’s arm. 

" Yes," was the fellow’s response ; " we met at the 
Castle of Zenta, in Hungary, where not only did you 
escape, but you were the means of sending our brave 
leader, Franz Haynald, and Koblitz and Fran9oise 
to prison. I have come from Hungary in order to carry 
out what has been decided in consequence." 


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164 

“ And what is that, pray ? ” inquired Falconer. 

" We succeeded in bringing your fiancee here so that 
you may both share the same fate — death I " he said 
in a low, hard voice, his eyes full of the fierce fire of 
vengeance. 

Stand aside ! " shouted Geoffrey. ** Let us pass ! ” 

A second later the young engineer found himself 
cornered with a heavy automatic pistol. 

" Move, and I’ll fire ! ” hissed the man whom he 
now recognised as a revolutionist named Stadler, who 
had visited the pseudo-Baron at the great castle in 
the Carpathians. 

Then swift as lightning the fellow slipped out of the 
door, banged it after him, and ere Geoffrey could reach 
it, he had bolted it on the outside. 

Both realised that they were caught like rats in a 
trap. 

Geoffrey in an instant dashed to the window, only, 
however, to find to his dismay that it was closely 
shuttered and barred from the outside. Precautions 
had been taken to prevent their escape ! 

“ Ah I ” cried the fellow from the other side of the 
door, “ let the police search ! They will never find 
either of you now. You see the stove ? Go across — 
and open it." 

They both glanced across the room and noticed a 
round iron stove about five feet in height, used for 
burning charcoal in winter. 

Falconer crossed, and on opening it, saw within what 
seemed to be a steel cylinder. 

" You’ve seen it — eh ? ’’ asked the voice mockingly. 
" That cylinder contains poison-gas 1 I will give you 
two minutes before I turn on your lethal draught — 
two minutes to wish each other a long farewell," and 
the brute laughed heartily in his fiendish triumph. 

Sylvia gave vent to a loud piercing shriek when she 
realised the horrible fate in store for them, and then 
she fell fainting into her lover’s arms. He bent and 
pressed his lips to hers for a second. Afterwards he 
placed her in a chair, and taking up another and heavier 


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chair, began to attack the door furiously, smashing 
the chair in his efforts. 

“ The two minutes are up 1 " cried that mocking 
voice with a low, exultant laugh. " Good-bye ! ’’ 

Next second a loud hissing came from the stove as 
the deadly gas, released suddenly, filled the room. 
Geoffrey caught a whiff of it, and instantly sank to 
the ground, inert and unconscious. 

When they recovered consciousness they both found 
themselves in hospital wards, attended by doctors, 
and both learned later that it was Sylvia's shriek which 
saved them. 

Monsieur Guiette had fortunately suspected that 
Sylvia had met with foul play, and wondering whether 
some mishap might not occur to Geoffrey, had ordered 
his men to keep strict observation, unknown to the 
young Englishman, with the result that in the very 
nick of time they had been able to rescue both of them 
from that fatal room, and unearth a desperate and 
widespread plot. They also arrested the dangerous 
Hungarian revolutionist, Hermann Stadler — ^who had 
rented the chateau furnished — as well as the young 
motor driver, and the pretty girl, Stadler's niece, who 
had so cleverly posed as the secretary to the Director 
of Civil Aviation. In a wood at the back of the chateau 
they found in a secluded spot an open grave ready for 
the reception of the victims ! 

The wireless tests at Bouvignes were delayed for 
two days until Falconer recovered, but at them 
Monsieur Marvaut — ^who had just returned from 
France — ^was present, and all went off most satisfac- 
torily, the results being declared to be greatly to the 
credit of Geoffrey Falconer. 


i66 


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CHAPTER IX 

THE THREE BAD MEN 

Geoffrey Falconer, Mrs. Beverley, and Sylvia were 
spending a week-end at Tansor, in Northamptonshire, 
with George Barclay, a friend of the South American 
widow, who rented a hunting-box and rode regularly 
with the Fitzwilliam Hounds. 

On the night of their arrival when they sat down to 
dinner with Barclay and his go-ahead wife and the 
latter’s cousin, a pretty girl named May Farncombe, 
all were full of expectation of some good runs. To 
Geoffrey, who had recenly returned from a mission 
abroad, the fine English country house, with its old- 
world atmosphere, its old oak, old silver, and air of 
solidity, was delightful after the flimsy gimcracks of 
foreign life. The young radio-engineer had earned 
praise from Marconi House for the manner in which 
certain missions abroad had been carried out, and he 
was rapidly advancing in the world of wireless. 

That evening proved an extremely pleasant one, 
and both Geoffrey and Sylvia were attracted by the 
chic of May Farncombe, who was tall and dark, about 
twenty-two or so, with a remarkable figure shown to 
advantage by a smart dinner-frock. She talked well, 
sang well, and was most enthusiastic over hunting. 

The meet next morning was at Wans ford, that 
one-time hunting centre beside the River Nene, and 
as Geoffrey rode with Sylvia and May, he noticed what 
a splendid horsewoman was the latter. She rode astride, 
her dark hair coiled tightly, her bowler hat with its 
broad brim suited her face admirably, while her habit 
fitted as though it had been moulded to her figure. 
Tied in her mare's tail was a tiny piece of red silk, a 
warning that she was a kicker. 

Hounds met opposite the Haycock, once a coaching- 


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inn, but now a private house, and the gathering became 
a large one. From the great rambling old house servants 
carried glasses of sloe gin for all and sundry who cared 
to partake of the old English hunting hospitality. 
Geoffrey’s host introduced him to the Master, while 
the crowd of horses and cars became more congested 
every minute, and everywhere greetings were being 
exchanged. 

Presently Barnard, the huntsman, drew his hounds 
together, the word was given, and all went leisurely 
up to draw first cover. 

The morning was a damp cold one in mid-February ; 
the frost had given, and every one expected a good run 
for the scent would be excellent. 

The first cover was, however, drawn blank, but 
from the second a fox went away straight for Elton, 
and soon the pace became fast and furious. After a 
couple of miles more than half the field were left behind ; 
still Geoffrey kept on, and while Sylvia remained far 
behind, yet May Farncombe was considerably in front 
of him. Suddenly, without any effort, the girl took a 
high hedge, and was cutting across the pastures ere he 
was aware that she had left the road. That she was 
a straight rider was quickly apparent, but Geoffrey 
preferred the gate to the hedge and ditch which she 
had taken so clearly. 

Half an hour later the kill took place near Haddon, 
and of the half-dozen in at the death May Farncombe 
was one. 

When Geoffrey came up five minutes later, she rode 
forward, crying : 

What a topping run, Mr. Falconer ! I have enjoyed 
it thoroughly 1 ” Her face was flushed with hard 
riding, yet her hair was in no way awry, and she pre- 
sented a really fine figure of the up-to-date athletic 
girl. 

Just, however, as Geoffrey and his companion sat 
watching Barnard cut off the brush, a tall, rather 
good-looking, fair-haired man rode up, having apparently 
been left behind, as he had. As he approached, Geoffrey 


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1 68 

noticed that he gave his handsome companion a strange 
look almost of warning, while she, on her part, turned 
away her head. It was as though he Jiad made her 
some secret sign which she had understood. 

That May Farncombe knew him was apparent. 
The slight quiver in the man’s eyelids, and the almost 
imperceptible curl of the lips had not passed him 
unnoticed. There was some secret between them, 
of what nature he, of course, knew not. 

" I wonder who that man is ? ” Geoffrey remarked 
quite casually, as soon as he was out of hearing. 

“ I don’t know,” was her prompt reply. ” He’s 
often out with the hounds.” 

Falconer smiled within himself. He saw that she 
did not intend to admit that she had any knowledge 
of him. Like all women, she was a clever diplomat. 
But the man had made a sign to her — a sign of secrecy. 

And at that moment Sylvia rode up with their host, 
George Barclay, and joined them, crying : 

” Oh ! what a run ! I was left quite out of it. 
You were both at the kill, I suppose ? ” 

That night Geoffrey sat alone with his host after 
the others had retired, and from him learnt that Mr. 
Farncombe, his wife’s uncle, had lived a long time in 
Marseilles as agent of a great English shipping company, 
and that May had been born in France. Falconer 
then mentioned the stranger who had exchanged those 
meaning glances with the girl, to which Barclay replied : 

” I often see the feUow hunting. He comes from 
London, and stays at the George, at Stamford, I have 
heard.” 

The days passed. Geoffrey managed to obtain an 
extension of his leave, and with Sylvia and May went 
to several meets — at King’s Cliffe, at Laxton Park, 
and also at Castor Hanglands. On each occasion 
the stranger from London was there. His name, 
Geoffrey found out from the George, at Stamford, was 
Ralph Phillips, but who or what he was nobody knew. 
So long as he paid a generous subscription to the 
Fitzwilliam pack, nobody cared. 


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169 

That May Earn combe in denying all knowledge of 
the man had deliberately told an untruth, was quite 
plain. Geoffrey, however, kept his own counsel, 
and while spending many happy hours with Sylvia — 
Lord Hendlewycke being away at Cannes staying 
with an aunt — ^he nevertheless made no mention of 
his discovery. 

How far Geoffrey was justified in watching the 
girl's movements is no concern of te writer. But 
he did so, for he had unexpectedly alighted upon certain 
suspicions, and was determined to elucidate them. 

Late one afternoon, Mrs. Beverley and her daughter 
having gone with Mrs. Barclay to make a call at Burghley, 
Geoffrey went for a stroll alone. While passing along 
the footpath from Tansor to Fotheringhay, he was 
skirting the edge of a big wood, when he caught sight 
of a flash of red among the bare black trees. It was 
May Farncombe, 

He drew back instantly and watched. She was 
standing with the mysterious Mr. Phillips, who was 
speaking in a low, earnest tone. He seemed to be 
giving her directions, while she appeared to be remon- 
strating with him in an appealing attitude. 

Fearing discovery, the young radio-engineer turned, 
and treading softly over the dead leaves — ^which were 
fortunately wet — crept away. 

He met her next at the dinner-table, when he noticed 
how pale and anxious she was, apparently entirely 
changed from her usual light-hearted self. She, of 
course, said nothing of the clandestine meeting, but 
made pretence of being interested in wireless, asking 
him many questions concerning its present development 
and its possibilities. 

Are many fresh discoveries being made ? " she 
presently inquired. 

Discoveries I " echoed Sylvia. “ Why, Geoffrey 
and his friends are making marvellous discoveries and 
improvements every day. But he won't tell you 
anything, my dear," she added ; "so it's no use asking.'* 

" I could tell you a good deal," Falconer said laughing 


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170 

" only I’m not allowed. The patents of many of our 
fresh discoveries are not yet quite safe.” 

” Ah I then I understand,” said the dark-haired 
girl at his side. ” But wireless is such a bewildering 
puzzle,” she went on. ” Somebody was telling me the 
other day some most extraordinary things — that a 
ship, for instance, could be guided through a tortuous 
channel by means of a cable laid in the channel, and 
that on the way they could actually signal through the 
water to the end of the cable.” 

Geoffrey smiled, and asked who had told her. 

She tried to recollect. It was at a dance in London 
— a man she met who was connected with some wireless 
firm. She had forgotten his name. She had danced 
with him twice, and had then seen no more of him. 

” Well, Miss Farncombe, you will be a little surprised 
to hear that system you speak of was invented no less 
than twenty years ago ! It depends on a simple prin- 
ciple well known to scientists, but has been of no 
practical use until comparatively recently, when the 
wonderful Thermionic Valve enabled us to enormously 
increase the sensitiveness of the apparatus. The 
Americans got some kudos in connection with the la 5 dng 
of a ‘ leader ' cable, as it is called, at the entrance to 
New York Harbour recently, but it is not generally 
known that we had the system working over here 
during the war.” 

“ Ah 1 Geoffrey,” laughed Sylvia, ” it all seems so 
simple to you, no doubt, but to me it is wonderful. 
I am glad to hear the British were not so behind as so 
many would have us believe. You are such a modest 
old thing — I feel sure you had something to do with the 
development of this invention. Come, tell me now.” 

” Oh ! really nothing at all, Sylvia,” he replied, 
” except perhaps to design an amplifier which was 
used with the first leader cable at — ^well, one of our 
naval bases.” 

” I thought so,” said the girl whom he loved so dearly. 

But how about the long-distance telephone ? ” 
asked May Farncombe. 


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171 

“ What do you know about such a telephone ? " 
Geoffrey asked in surprise, as the girl had referred to a 
technical point which only a man versed in wireless 
could understand. 

For a few seconds the girl seemed rather confused. 
Then she said in a rather faltering voice, as she took 
up her wine-glass : “ Oh ! I don’t know anything about 
wireless, you know. Somebody told me of some 
wonderful results in telephoning over long distances.” 

Those words caused Geoffrey Falconer to ponder. 

He dropped the subject. Loyal as he was to the 
great Marconi Company, he refused to discuss any 
of its confidences over a dinner-table. And he was 
relieved when the general chatter became concerned 
with a dance which was to be given at Peterborough 
on the following evening. 

Next morning, about eleven o’clock, Sylvia and 
Geoffrey went out for a walk together on the high 
road which leads into the quiet little town of Oundle. 
Sylvia in a thick grey coat and a canary-coloured 
scarf, and carrying a stiff ash stick, went along with 
true golfing stride. 

Strangely enough, she was the first to mention the 
girl Farncombe. 

I can’t fathom May at all,’* she said. ” To me 
she’s a mystery.” 

” Why ? ” asked her lover, pretending ignorance. 

” I don’t know, but she knows so little of you — 
and yet she knows so much I ” 

” How ? ” 

” Well — ^her knowledge of wireless last night was 
extraordinary. She seems to know things that are 
entirely confidential. How ? I don’t like such people, 
Geoff. They’re a bit uncanny 1 ” 

” Yes,” he laughed. ” She’s somewhat of a mystery. 
But when one goes to a house-party one is sure to meet 
people who are mysterious. Yet they may be, after 
all, the most ordinary persons. It is one’s own point 
of view that often creates mystery. That’s my 
opinion.” 


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172 

With that Sylvia agreed. Yet, of course, her lover 
had become more than ever puzzled over their fellow- 
guest, and was glad when Sylvia let the subject 
drop. 

Sylvia and he were lovers, it was true, but he was 
so plain, straightforward, and honest, that he could 
not bring himself to reveal to the girl he loved the facts 
which had come within his knowledge. 

If May Farncombe had a secret lover, what business 
was it of his ? True, her undue knowledge of wireless 
inventions was somewhat strange, but what was most 
probable was that some friend of hers, perhaps the 
fair-haired man who had met her clandestinely, had 
given her just a little superficial knowledge — ^just as 
so many people possess. 

Geoffrey bade farewell to his host and hostess three 
days later, and left for Warley, Mrs. Beverley and her 
daughter remaining for a few days longer. Sylvia had 
become very friendly with May, and Mrs. Beverley 
had asked her to stay with them for a fortnight or 
so in Upper Brook Street in about a month’s time. 

Back at the Works at Chelmsford, Geoffrey continued 
his research work, assisting two well-known engineers 
in some highly interesting experiments. Privately 
he was experimenting with the amplification and 
magnification of wireless signals as applied to a new 
automatic call-device for use at sea. One had recently 
been perfected by young Falconer privately, but at 
present it was a secret, and not yet patented, for a 
slight point about it was not to his satisfaction. 

Each night at his own private experimental laboratory 
at Warley he spent hours upon hours in trying to 
devise some means of removing the one slight defect 
of his new apparatus Several automatic call-devices 
had been invented, and the Marconi one for use on 
ships had proved extremely satisfactory. Yet Falconer, 
true experimenter that he was, was never satisfied 
with results. He always endeavoured to make further 
improvements. 

The calling-device, it may here be explained, is a 


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173 

piece of apparatus which will only ring an alarm bell 
when the call-signal of a ship — three or four letters 
of the alphabet — or the distress signal, “ S.O.S." is 
sent, and even then it is so arranged that the letters 
to which it is set to respond must be repeated before 
the alarm rings. The object of such a device is to 
enable small ships to work with one operator, who 
need not keep constant watch. As a rule passenger 
boats of any size carry three operators, who keep 
constant watch for calls day and night. But Geoffrey 
hoped that, by an improvement of the new device, a 
greater perfection still could be arrived at. 

His hope, indeed, was to so devise a scheme that any 
message sent out to the call-signal to which it was 
set, would be printed in Morse automatically upon a 
tape instrument, so that even if the operator were 
not within call, the message would be recorded. Such 
achievement, however, was fraught with many technical 
difficulties of wave-length and other things, as all 
wireless men will quickly foresee. Still he worked hard 
and patiently each evening after his return from the 
Works. 

Now and then he went to London and spent the 
evening in Upper Brook Street. Once or twice he 
dined out with Sylvia and her mother, and went to 
one or two dances in Mayfair, but the greater part of 
his spare time was occupied with his wireless calling- 
device. His superiors at Marconi House knew the 
trend of his experiments, and encouraged him, for 
Marconi apparatus is always being developed, improved, 
and again improved, until absolute perfection is at last 
arrived at. The calling-device in use was perfect, but 
if the incoming message could be recorded, then the 
improvement would be of immense benefit to both 
shipowners and shipmasters. 

One day when he called at Mrs. Beverley's, he found 
that May Farncombe had arrived upon her promised 
visit, and he sat in the drawing-room chatting for a 
long time with Sylvia and her friend. 

“ Geoffrey has actually torn himself away from his 


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174 

horrible old wireless/' Sylvia remarked. “ For nearly 
a fortnight weVe hardly seen him." 

" Fve been awfully busy on a new gadget," the 
young man replied with a laugh. Then, turning to 
May, he added : " Sylvia is always poking fun at me 
because I happen to be enthusiastic over my work." 

" Well, I don’t mean anything, my dear old boy," 
laughed the girl. "You know that. What I think 
is that you apply yourself far too closely to it — at 
the Works all day and then continuing your work at 
home, sometimes into the early hours. You’ll injure 
your health if you don’t take care." 

" What are you particularly interested in discovering 
just now ? ’’ asked May. 

In reply he explained, and found that she listened 
quite intelligently. 

After an early dinner he took them both out to a 
theatre, but was unable to see them home, having to 
leave before the performance was over in order to 
catch the last train. 

As he came out of the theatre a man in evening dress 
was standing upon the step, leisurely smoking a cigarette 
as though waiting for some one. As Geoffrey brushed 
past him, he glanced round, and was surprised to recog- 
nise in him the mysterious stranger of the hunting-field 
— the man known at the George, at Stamford, as Mr. 
Ralph Phillips. An omnibus going direct to Liverpool 
Street was passing at the moment, and Geoffrey jumped 
upon it. 

The encounter was a strange one. Was it by mere 
accident that they had met ? Or was the man Phillips 
awaiting May Farncombe ? The incident sorely puzzled 
him. The pair might be lovers in secret, but their 
attitude when he had found them together certainly 
negatived such a supposition. 

Back at Warley that night Geoffrey found that his 
father had gone to bed, so he sat in his wireless 
room for a long time trying some new adjustments 
upon the piece of apparatus he was bent upon 
improving. But recollections of the man Phillips 


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kept running through his brain, so that at last he went 
to a drawer, and taking out some small snapshot photo- 
graphs, selected one which he carried to the light and 
carefully examined. It was a photograph of Phillips 
which he had taken surreptitiously in the hunting- 
field. The man in hunting pink had dismounted and 
Wcis leading his horse, while close beside him May 
Farncombe could be seen mounted, chatting with Sylvia, 
who was riding at her side. 

“ I wonder ? " he muttered to himself. “ I wonder 
what it all means ? Why does he haunt the girl so ? 
Why do they in public appear as strangers ? I 
wonder ? 

And he placed the photograph in his wallet, and 
turning out the lights, ascended to his room. 

About ten days went by, when one evening, being 
in London with Maurice Peterson, one of the engineers 
from the Works, they looked in at the Palace Theatre 
after dinner. The performance was excellent, as 
usual, and later when they strolled into the bar the 
first person they encountered was the mysterious 
Phillips, well-dressed, and wearing a smartly-cut 
grey overcoat. 

In a moment Peterson greeted him warmly, and 
said : 

" Falconer, let me introduce you to my friend, 
Mr. Paget.” 

The two men shook hands. Paget I Then Phillips 
was not the man’s real name, Geoffrey thought. 

“ I think we met in Northamptonshire — didn’t 
we ? ” asked the man who called himself Paget. 

Oh, you've met before — eh ? ” asked Peterson. 

Yes ; in the hunting-field,'’ Falconer said vaguely, 
and then all three had drinks together, and Falconer 
and his friend were afterwards compelled to leave. 

“ Who is that man Paget ? '' Geoffrey asked as soon 
as they were in the taxi. 

” Oh, quite a nice fellow. I met him one day in 
the train as I was coming back from Carnarvon. He 
seemed to know something about wireless, and he 


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176 

gave me his card. So we met once or twice afterwards. 
He has rooms in Half Moon Street." 

" And he’s fond of hunting," Falconer said. " Have 
you ever seen him with a t£dl, dark, very good-looking 
girl ? " 

" A girl with a mole on her left cheek ? Oh, yes. 
One afternoon about a week ago I called on him and 
found her having tea at his rooms. I didn’t catch her 
name. She was dressed in brown, and had a beautiful 
set of furs." 

It was May Farncombe I 

" I know the young lady. She’s a friend of mine," 
Falconer said briefly, more puzzled than ever. " But 
do you really know anything about Paget ? " 

" Only that he seems to be a man of considerable 
means, very generous, and quite a good sort." 

Geoffrey remained silent. He was thinking deeply. 
It seemed that May Farncombe’s knowledge of wireless 
— and she quite unconsciously had betrayed a fairly 
wide grasp of the science and its latest developments 
— ^had been derived from the man whom she had 
pretended was a stranger to her. 

Paget’s attitude towards Geoffrey’s friend had been 
most affable. He had even called him by his Christian 
name, and had reminded him of an appointment for 
dinner two days later. 

Before they left the stranger added : "I hope, 
Mr. Falconer, that we shall meet again very soon." 

They did meet, and once under rather curious 
circumstances. 

Geoffrey each night worked hard at his new design 
for the calling-device, to which he was attaching 
apparatus to record upon the tape the signals received. 
He met with failure after failure until at last, one 
night, he set his calling-device to receive signals from 
the efiicient station of a Dutch amateur at Amsterdam 
— ^known in the world of wireless as " P.Y.N." In 
wireless both in America and England, people and 
places are known by their call -signal, rather than by 
their names. He knew that on that particular evening 


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“ P.Y.N.” would call by Morse before sending telephony 
and music to English amateurs. 

So having set his instrument attached to the " inker,” 
he waited. Suddenly at nine o’clock the Morse sounder 
gave two or three sharp clicks. He switched on the 
tape, and out upon it came a printed message from 
Amsterdam to certain stations in England. 

His invention was complete 1 

With natural pride and excitement he called the 
Professor, and the pair stood watching the narrow green 
tape roll forth from the square brass ” recorder ” 
mounted upon its mahogany base — ^the strip bearing 
the message clearly printed. The calling-device had 
only responded to the one signal, ” P.Y.N.” 

” Congratulations, my boy,” said the old man, 
well pleased. “You deserve success after all that 
experimenting and the many hours you have given 
to it. I only hope it will bring you advancement and 
money,” he added. “ It certainly should.” 

“ I hope so,” laughed the young man. “ I was told 
at Marconi House only the other day that if I were 
successful the invention would be of inestimable value. 
And now it really works 1 ” 

Next day when he arrived at Chelmsford he told 
Peterson of his success, and that morning in the large, 
well-appointed luncheon-room at the Works — ^that 
bright apartment wherein the heads of the departments 
take their midday meal, and gossip — ^young Falconer 
was the recipient of many congratulations. 

“ Of course you’ll patent it at once,” said one engineer 
seated next to him — a man whose name is a household 
word in wireless. 

“ Yes,” laughed Geoffrey. “ I suppose I ought to 
do so.” 

“ Ought to ? Why, of course. It is a wonderful 
advance in wireless,” said another man a little further 
down the table. 

That night he was again at Upper Brook Street, 
and naturally told Sylvia and her friend of his great 
achievement. 

M 


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178 

May Farncombe instantly grew interested, and put 
to him a number of questions. More than ever the 
clever girl showed a remarkable intelligence concerning 
wireless. 

Mrs. Beverley had a small party that night ; there- 
fore, there was dancing, and the evening was most 
enjoyable. “ The Wild Widow '' had been a great 
social success in London, and to her parties flocked 
the people of the very best set. The penurious Lord 
Hendlewycke had fallen beneath a cloud, much to 
Sylvia’s delight, and now her mother seemed keenly 
on the alert for some rather better match for her daughter 
— ^with a man of title, of course. She desired at all 
hazards to return to Buenos Ayres as the mother-in- 
law of an English peer. 

Geoffrey looked on amusedly at it all. With Sylvia 
he had a perfect understanding. She had promised 
him, time after time, that if she ever married he was 
to be her husband. The rest did not matter. Hence 
he remained perfectly content, devoting his days — 
and his nights — to scientific research. 

One day Peterson told him that he was dining with 
Paget that night at the Bath Club, and that his host 
had telephoned asking him to bring him along. At 
first Geoffrey hesitated. Next moment he saw that 
if he became friendly with the mysterious fox-hunter 
he might learn the truth concerning certain facts which 
had so sorely puzzled him. 

Therefore he accepted. 

He found Paget a most genial host While at table 
they spoke of wireless, and Peterson made mention 
of his fellow-guest’s important invention. At once 
Paget became interested, but Geoffrey merely laughed, 
and with his usual modesty, turned the conversation 
into another channel. Afterwards they went to a 
theatre and concluded a merry evening. 

May Farncombe’s stay with Mrs. Beverley was almost 
at an end. She was joining her aunt in Paris, and 
then going with her down to Cap Martin. Somehow 
Geoffrey could not put it out of his mind that something 


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179 

was wrong. There was a secret between the girl and 
the affable man known at Stamford as Phillips, and 
in Half Moon Street as Paget. As the looker-on sees 
most of the game, he resolved to watch at Half Moon 
Street. This he did on several afternoons, wondering 
whether the girl, escaping from Upper Brook Street 
on pretence of shopping, would call there. 

On the third afternoon, as he lingered in the vicinity, 
very careful to remain out of observation from the 
man’s windows, she came, neatly and quietly dressed, 
and, unseen, Geoffrey watched her enter the house 
where Paget lived. 

She remained nearly an hour and a half, while he 
still waited against the Park railings on the other side 
of Piccadilly from where he had a clear view of Half 
Moon Street. At last she emerged, and gaining Picca- 
dilly, turned in the direction of Hyde Park Corner. 
Noting this, Geoffrey slipped into a passing taxi and 
followed, thus getting in front of her unnoticed in the 
traffic. At Apsley House he got out, paid the man, 
and mingling with the hurrying crowd, walked in 
the direction she was coming. 

At last, as though quite unexpectedly, they met. 
She started as though he were some apparition. For 
a moment she seemed too upset to be able to speak. 
Indeed, Geoffrey detected that she had been crying, 
for her eyes were swollen, and her cheeks showed traces 
of tears. 

He was about to remark upon it, but refrained. 
Evidently her interview with the fellow Paget had 
been the reverse of pleasant, and her attitude set him 
further wondering. She, of course, had no idea that 
he had watched her go to Paget’s rooms. 

He turned and walked with her up Park Lane, amazed 
to notice how nervous and unstrung she seemed. 

“ I’ve been out to a scent shop in Regent Street,” 
she explained ” Sylvia and her mother have gone to 
tea at Lady Burford’s, and I’m busy preparing to go 
over to Paris.’ 

” When do you leave ? ” 


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“ About next Wednesday, I think. My aunt is 
coming from Bordeaux, and I meet her at the Hdtel 
Bristol." 

The mystery of her interview with Paget, and its 
effect upon her, caused him to ponder as he walked to 
Upper Brook Street, where he left her at Mrs. Beverley’s 
door, asking her to give a message to Sylvia that he 
had been compelled to get back to Warley. 

In order to further endeavour to probe the mystery 
surrounding the man Paget, Geoffrey next afternoon, 
after leaving Marconi House at a quarter past five, 
called unexpectedly upon him at his chambers. 

Paget, who was seated before the fire in the ease 
of a black velvet lounge coat, jumped up, greeted him 
warmly, and bade him be seated in the deep cosy 
arm-chair opposite, expressing delight that he had 
called. 

We'll dine together," he said, as he passed him 
the cigarette-box. " Seen Peterson to-day ? " 

" No. I haven’t been at Chelmsford to-day," 
Falconer replied. 

" I met another of your fellows from the Works 
the day before yesterday — a friend of Peterson. He 
tells me that your printing device is most wonderful — 
and there’s a lot of money in it. I hope you’ve patented 
it." 

" Not yet," replied the young fellow frankly, " but 
I mean to do so in a day or so — ^when I get the circuits 
drawn out." 

It’s your own invention, I take it ? Nothing to 
do with th Company — eh ? " 

" At present — no. But the Company controls all 
wireless patents that are worth anything at all. They 
will control mine," was Geoffrey’s reply. 

" Well, I hope yours will bring you in a lot of money. 
It certainly must be of the greatest use in the merchant 
service, and you are to be heartily congratulated." 

Geoffrey turned the conversation to the Fitzwilliam 
Hunt, and the several runs in which both had taken 
part, hoping that he might mention May Farncombe. 


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i8i 

But he refrained. Indeed, he seemed to have no wish 
to recall his stay at Stamford. Perhaps it was because 
he had suspicion that Geoffrey knew that the name 
he had gone under at the George Hotel was not the 
one he was now using. 

That night they had a pleasant dinner at Jules’, 
but more than ever it became impressed upon Geoffrey’s 
mind that the man had some sinister influence over the 
girl, hence her tears on the previous afternoon. There 
was a mystery somewhere, but what it was he was 
utterly unable to solve. Still, no man could have been 
more genial and light-hearted than that man who, 
leading a life of luxury, seemed to be surrounded by 
many friends. 

On the following Tuesday night Falconer was again 
at Mrs. Beverley’s to bid May Farncombe good-bye, 
as she was leaving for Paris on the following morning. 
At dinner she seemed anxious to get away from London, 
and Geoffrey guessed the reason. She longed to extri- 
cate herself from some invisible net which the man Paget 
had cast about her. Apparently, for some secret reason, 
she was entirely in his power. 

“ Well, Miss Farncombe,” he said, as they stood 
together in the hall just before he departed, ” I wish 
you hon voyage, and I hope we shall see you back in 
London again very soon.” 

At that moment they were alone in the big wide hall. 

” Hush ! ” she whispered. ” I shall pretend to go 
to Paris — but I shall only go as far as Dover. Where 
can you see me alone — in secret — to-morrow night ? ” 

” Anywhere you like,” he replied, much surprised. 

” Then let us say in the lounge of the H6tel Russell 
at eight o’clock. But not a soul must know ! ” she 
whispered. 

Then aloud she said cheerily, just as Sylvia came 
out of the morning-room ; 

” Well, good-bye, Mr. Falconer, good-bye ! ” 

And they shook hands, and a few moments later 
he was walking towards Grosvenor Square more than 
ever perplexed. 


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Next evening he was again in London, and in great 
anxiety arrived at the hotel in Russell Square where, 
passing through the hall, he saw May Famcombe 
awaiting him in the lounge. She had on her hat 
and coat, and rose to meet him, pale-faced and 
anxious. 

“ You see I'm back ! " she said with a faint smile. 
" We can’t talk here. Somebody may overhear us 1 
Let us walk around the Square — eh ? " 

This they did. They walked together slowly four 
times round the Square, though the night was very 
cold and windy. Neither thought of the weather, 
for the girl was too perturbed and excited, and the 
man too annoyed and astounded at what she revealed 
to him. 

The facts which, in desperation she disclosed, staggered 
him. He promised to assist her, while she, on her 
part, thanked him profusely and revealed certain 
extraordinary circumstances which held him dumb- 
founded and fiercely angry. 

At last they turned back into the hotel, and after 
sitting with her in the lounge for some time, he rose, 
and gripping her gloved hand, thanked her for her 
confidence. 

“ I shall really go to Paris to-morrow morning,” 
she said. ” But remember all that I have said, and 
respect my confidence — won't you, Mr. Falconer ? ” 

” I certainly will. Miss Famcombe. Good-bye. 
You have all my sympathy, I assure you. But keep 
a stout heart, for I hope in the end all will be well,” 
he said reassuringly. 

” But my secret ! ” she exclaimed. 

” Leave that to me. Good-bye,” he repeated, and 
turning he left her. 

A week later Geoffrey received a note from Paget 
asking him to dine with him at the Bath Club, an 
invitation which he accepted. Another and rather 
older man named Owen, to whom he had been intro- 
duced about a fortnight before, dined with them. 
Afterwards they went round to Paget’s rooms for an 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 183 

hour, and later Geoffrey left by 'bus to catch his train 
from Liverpool Street. 

He was walking along the platform and about to 
enter the train when Owen, accompanied by a tall, 
clean-shaven man, came up breathlessly. 

“ This is the man ! Owen cried, pointing to Falconer. 

I give him into custody for stealing my pocket- 
book ! He must have stolen it while we were at the 
club ! ” 

What ! — what do you mean ? ” gasped the young 
radio-engineer, turning upon him aghast. 

“ I mean that you have my pocket-book upon you 
— a brown suHe one, with sixty pounds in Treasury 
notes.” 

“ It's untrue ! ” declared Geoffrey. I know nothing 
of your pocket-book. But look ! ” he exclaimed, 
utterly confounded. " A crowd is collecting. Let’s 
go somewhere and argue it out.” 

"Yes,” Owen agreed, turning to the detective. 

‘ Let’s go back to Mr. Paget’s rooms, and then you 
can take him to the police-station afterwards.” 

Geoffrey naturally became imdignant, but in the 
taxi the detective put his hand into the inner pocket 
of the young fellow’s dinner-jacket and drew forth 
the missing wallet ! 

" See ! ” exclaimed the man ; " here is the missing 
property — found upon you ! You can’t make any 
excuse, can you ? ” Then turning to Owen he said : 
" It’s very fortunate, sir, that you came to Vine Street 
at once — or he would have thrown the case away.” 

Geoffrey could not utter a word. He knew that 
he was the victim of some foul plot, from which it 
seemed impossible to extricate himself. 

Back at Half Moon Street, a prisoner in the hands 
of the police, he stood with the three men, utterly 
dumbfounded. He protested that the wallet must 
have been purposely placed in his pocket when he had 
taken off his jacket in order to wash his hands. But 
all three laughed at this lame explanation. 

" And what do you intend to do ? ” asked Falconer. 


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184 

'' To prosecute you for theft,” answered Owen. 
“ And it will be a nice end to your very promising 
career as a wireless engineer ! ” 

Geoffrey bit his lip in dismay. 

” Is there no other way out of it ? ” he asked in a 
low, hard voice. 

“ Yes,” answered Paget, ” there is.” And he asked 
the detective to retire into the next room. Then when 
the door was closed, the man Paget exclaimed : 

” I propose, Owen, that if this young fellow gives 
us the diagrams of his new device for printing automatic 
wireless signals from the call-device, that we say nothing 
about it. It would only be a quid pro quo — eh ? ” 

” Yes. But he might give us false diagrams,” 
Owen remarked, shaking his head dubiously. 

” Make him write a statement that the money has 
been found upon him, and in order to avoid arrest 
and scandal he undertakes to hand over to us to-night 
his diagrams, and also his working apparatus. We 
will motor down with him to Warley for that purpose.” 

To this course the two men agreed. Therefore 
Paget drew up a confession and undertaking which, 
under compulsion, Geoffrey signed, rather than be 
brought before the magistrates next day. 

Afterwards all four descended together and went 
out into the street, where the taxi was still awaiting 
them. 

Just as they were about to enter it Geoffrey slipped 
a police whistle from his vest pocket and blew it, when 
instantly four constables and a man in plain clothes 
closed upon them, and Geoffrey gave all three in charge ! 
The man who had posed as a detective was one of the 
blackmailing gang ! 

The faces of the trio were a study. Their plot had 
been a clever one, but the counterplot which Geoffrey 
had laid for them had been complete. 

The man Paget and his two friends appeared in due 
course at the Old Bailey, and all three returned to 
penal servitude, thus freeing poor May Farncombe — 
whom they had compelled to be their accomplice. 


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They had held her in their power by first compelling 
her to sign a confession of theft in a similar manner, 
and then holding over her threats of exposure to her 
family and her friends. 

The plot which the girl revealed to Falconer was a 
deeply-laid and cleverly-conceived one in order to 
obtain the secret of his invention, wliich they had 
planned to sell to some German firm in New York for 
a very considerable sum. ^ 

Indeed, Paget had already booked his passage across 
the Atlantic, and would have sailed from Liveipool 
on the following day had not Geoffrey laid his plans to 
entrap the unscrupulous trio. 

Needless to say that on the day following their 
arrest steps were taken to patent the new device — 
which is now safe from infringement. 


CHAPTER X 

THE MYSTERY OF BERENICE 

Over the picturesque Welsh mountains the wind blew 
fresh, even though the afternoon was a brilliant one 
in August. 

Outside the great Marconi wireless station high up 
at Ceunant, midway between Carnarvon and Llanberis, 
Geoffrey stood with Sylvia and her mother, explaining 
the huge aerial system with its ten masts, each four 
hundred feet high, placed around the cluster of white 
buildings comprising the power-house, transmission 
rooms, and other departments. The tall masts dwarfed 
the buildings beneath them, and both mother and 
daughter gazed up at them wonderingly when Falconer 
explained that from them messages had actually been 
sent through the ether and received clearly at Sydney, 
a distance of twelve thousand miles. 

They had spent a most interesting afternoon watching 
the commercial messages, most of them in code, being 
transmitted to Belmar, on the opposite side of the 


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Atlantic, and now the car was waiting to take them 
back to Carnarvon where they were staying the night 
at the Royal Hotel. They had all three travelled down 
by the Irish Mail from Euston to Holyhead, arriving 
there in the morning, and after breakfast at the hotel 
the car had taken them out to Ceunant, w’here they 
had lunched with the engineer-in-charge, and Geoffrey 
had afterwards acted as their guide, making full 
explanation oiall they witnessed. 

“ Wonderful ! ” declared Sylvia as they entered 
the car. “ The public speak airily of wireless, yet they 
little know to what marvellous perfection it is being 
brought.” 

”That s so, dear,” replied the South American widow. 
“I’m sure we’re awfully obliged to Geoffrey for showing 
us the station. It is a privilege accorded to very 
few.” 

“ Well,” laughed Geoffrey, “ the company certainly 
do not encourage the merely curious. Otherwise all 
our stations would be overrun with visitors.” 

The drive back through Llanrug to old-world Car- 
narvon was delightful, and after tea Sylvia and her 
lover took a stroll through the town as far as the great 
mediaeval fortress which is washed on two sides by the 
waters of the Menai Straits and the Seiont. They were 
shown the Eagle Tower, where the first Prince of Wales 
was born ; the Queen’s Tower, and the other historic 
portions of the fine old castle, and then returned to 
the hotel to rejoin Mrs. Beverley. 

Later on, while they were at dinner, a tall, good- 
looking, dark-haired young man entered and glanced 
around to find a seat. 

Instantly Geoffrey recognised him as Jack Halliday, 
an old schoolfellow at Shrewsbury, who was now a 
mining engineer, and was rapidly rising in his profession. 
The men greeted each other warmly, and on being 
introduced to the two ladies, the newcomer was invited 
to a vacant seat at their table. 

“ When I last met you. Jack, you were just going 
out to Peru,” Geoffrey said. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 187 

“Yes, that was a couple of years ago — wasn’t it ? I 
did some prospecting in the Andes, and was quite 
successful,” replied the young man. “ Now I’m off 
to Egypt for a trip.” 

“ How lovely ! ” remarked Sylvia. “ I wish you’d 
go to Egypt, mother.” 

“ Mine will not be a very comfortable journey,’ 
said the young man. “ I’m going prospecting.” 

“ In search of mines ? ” asked Sylvia. 

“Yes. There is believed to be a rich deposit of 
gold at a spot a little to the south" of the ancient city 
of Berenice, on the west coast of the Red Sea, not 
far from Cape Ras Benas. I have obtained from the 
Egyptian Government a permit to prospect.” 

“ How extremely interesting ! ” remarked Mrs. 
Beverley. “ What makes you think that gold is there ?” 

“ Well, it appears that after Pharaoh Ptolemy II 
founded the port about three centuries before the 
Christian era, gold was discovered in considerable 
quantities about eight miles off. For several centuries 
the mines were worked, until, with the destruction of 
the city, they were also obliterated,” was Halliday's 
reply. “ Quite recently, however, my friend, Professor 
Harte, the well-known Egyptologist, has been exploring 
the ruins, and among the hieroglyphic inscriptions 
there, he found mention of the mines and of their 
richness. Therefore, it is my intention to endeavour 
to locate them.” 

“ I wish you every success. Jack,” exclaimed Geoffrey. 
“You certainly deserve it, for you’re always on the 
move.” 

“ And you meet with a good many adventures when 
you are on prospecting expeditions, I suppose ? ” 
remarked the widow. 

“ Well — a few,” he answered modestly. “It is a 
pretty rough life sometimes, but one gets used to it,” 
and his bronzed face relaxed into a merry smile. 

The party spent an enjoyable evening together, and 
while Geoffrey gossiped with the rich widow, his 
friend Jack had a long chat with Sylvia. 


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They all retired to bed early, and were up betimes to 
the usual country hotel bacon-and-egg breakfast, the 
habit from which the Englishman, however cosmopoli- 
tan, can never break himself. In northern Europe 
they eat cheese for breakfast, in the south the horse- 
shaped roll with coffee, but the Briton must ever have 
his eggs-and-bacon in no matter what climate. 

On arrival at Euston that evening they parted, and 
Geoffrey w'ent back to his work in the research depart- 
ment at Chelmsford. He was experimenting with 
the four-electrode valve, the latest and most scientific 
invention applied to wireless reception. 

Hour after hour, and day after day, with his 
telephones clamped over his ears, he experimented 
with new circuits, new inductances, and new condensers, 
the main object being the application of wireless tele- 
phony to commercial and household requirements in 
opposition to the heavy cost of construction and 
maintenance of land lines. 

Many of the experiments in that great, well-lit room 
had given marvellous results, which when made 
public, would cause amazement throughout the 
world. 

One afternoon, ten days later, Geoffrey met Jack 
Halliday in London. The latter was busy preparing 
his outfit for the expedition to recover the mine of 
the ancient Eg5q)tians. Falconer was walking along 
the Strand not far from Marconi House when they 
accidentally came face to face. With Halliday was a 
man of about forty, smartly-groomed and well-set-up, 
apparently an ex-officer, with a well-dressed and rather 
pretty young woman. The man’s name was Gilbert 
Farrer, and the girl’s Miss Beryl Hessleton. 

“ We’re just going along to the Carlton to tea,” 
Jack said. “ Come with us.” 

Geoffrey accepted the invitation, and they all took 
tea in the palm-court. 

Farrer struck Geoffrey as quite a good fellow — a 
man who had knocked about the world a good deal, 
no doubt. His companion seemed a smart, go-ahead 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 189 

woman, who smoked her after-tea cigarette in a long 
amber holder, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy it. 

It was soon apparent from the conversation that they 
were new acquaintances of Jack’s. He had met Miss 
Hessleton on a steamer between Bergen and Hull a 
few weeks before, and they had met again by chance 
at Giro’s. Then she had introduced him to her friend, 
Farrer. 

After tea, while the orchestra played softly, the 
conversation naturally turned upon Jack’s expedition, 
for he had mentioned it to Beryl Hessleton on the 
trip across the North Sea. 

“ Well,” said Farrer, ” I wish you every good luck 
on your venture. There’s no doubt that there’s gold 
in Egypt — and a good deal of it. I recollect when I 
was at Oxford reading up a lot about the mines of 
the ancient Egyptians. The workings have, I 
suppose, during the ages, been buried in the desert 
sand ? ” 

‘"Yes,” replied Jack. “ The sands are always 
shifting, and no doubt when the ancient city was 
destroyed and abandoned before the advance of the 
enemy, the Egyptians took good care to obliterate 
their mines.” 

” I expect you’ll have some difficulty in finding 
it,” remarked the smart young lady between puffs 
of her cigarette. “ Oh ! how I wish I were a man, so 
that I could travel and prospect. I’d love it I You’ve 
got nothing to do, Gilbert. Why don’t you have a 
trip out to the Red Sea ? ” 

” Ah ! ” laughed Halliday. ” I fear you would 
soon wish yourself back in London.” 

Three evenings later Geoffrey, who had dined at 
Mrs. Beverley’s, walked round to his club to get his 
letters before returning home to Warley, when in the 
hall he found Jack Halliday. The latter had just 
looked in to leave him a note of farewell, as he was 
leaving the following day for Egypt. 

” Come with me round to Bevin's and have a bit 
of supper,” he urged. ” It’s my last night in tovm. 


190 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

And you can get a train home and on to Chelmsford 
early in the morning/’ 

“ Chelmsford ! ” laughed Geoffrey. I can’t very 
well turn up at the Works in a dinner-jacket ! ” 

But thus pressed, he nevertheless accepted his old 
schoolfellow’s invitation, and went round to Bevin’s, 
the smart night club close to Portman Square. 

The scene there was one of gay abandon, of reckless 
expenditure, and somewhat questionable morals. Alas ! 
how the West End has degenerated since the war ! 
Yet these adventures of Geoffrey Falconer have no 
concern with the morals of Underground London. 

Beryl Hessleton and Gilbert Farrer were there, and 
all four had supper, during which Halliday told them 
that he hoped to win a fortune upon the information 
which his friend, the famous Egyptologist, had derived 
from the ancient moniunents in the colossal ruins of 
Berenice, some of which were quite as wonderful as 
those at Thebes. 

“ If I find this mine, I have a first-class firm into 
whose hands I can easily place the concession,” he said 
to Falconer across the table, amid all the gay laughter 
and irresponsible chatter of the assembled company. 
The West End to-day only emulates the Montmartre 
of yesterday, with its ” Heaven,” ” Hell,” and ” The 
Red Windmill,” without counting the ” Dead Rat.” 

The war has passed, but your cosmopolitan of any 
nation is just the same easy-going Bohemian traveller, 
a gipsy whose laughing boast is that when his hat is 
on his roof is on. 

Such a man was Jack Halliday. 

Geoffrey next day saw him off from Victoria Station 
with an array of green canvas bags — ^long bags like 
those of cricketers. And with him upon the platform 
stood Beryl Hessleton. The young mining engineer 
had been pleasant to her, but he was rather surprised 
that she should take the trouble to see him off. Geoffrey 
noted it, but made no comment. 

About six weeks went by. One evening, having 
worked late in the research laboratory at Marconi 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 191 

House, Geoffrey walked westward to his club. On 
the way he met a middle-aged man-about-town named 
Franks, whose acquaintance he had formed at Mrs. 
Beverley’s, and after a brief chat, Geoffrey invited him 
to dine at the Grill of the Piccadilly Hotel. 

While they were eating their meal a stout, white- 
haired man entered, accompanied by the handsome 
Beryl Hessleton, who, recognising the young radio- 
engineer, waved her hand across at him and smiled. 

“ Hulloa ! Do you know her ? ” asked Franks with 
some surprise. 

“ Slightly,” was Geoffrey’s reply. 

” H’m 1 ” grunted the other. ” A pretty cute crowd 
she’s in with.” 

” How ? ” inquired Falconer. 

” Oh — well. That old chap she’s with is old Daddy 
Whittaker — a friend of a fellow named Farrer. The 
whole crowd are international crooks, so be careful 
if you happen to know them.” 

Geoffrey was surprised at this. But, as usual, he 
hept his own counsel. It seemed that his old school 
chum, Jack, had got mixed up with a very queer set. 
But in the West End there are queer sets on every hand, 
the dancing and drug-taking degenerates of both sexes 
who live upon their wits, and live very well, too. In 
certain circles within a mile of Piccadilly Circus, thieves 
and blackmailing vampires hobnob with young and 
pretty women of title, while innocent persons of both 
sexes fall into the vortex of vice and gaiety. 

Presently Geoffrey asked, glancing across at Beryl : 

” What do you really laiow about her ? She's 
rather fond of a great pal of mine.” 

” Then I pity your pal, my dear Falconer,” was the 
elderly man’s reply. Franks was a member of Wells’ 
and the Bachelors’, and he moved in a very fast, go-ahead 
set. 

” Why ? ” asked the young radio-engineer. 

” Because of the past record of the crowd of which 
she is the decoy-duck. That’s all,” was his friend’s 
reply. ” Daddy Whittaker, who is sitting yonder 


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192 

with her, is an old gaol-bird who still directs the 
nefarious operations of a dozen men and women. And 
woe betide anyone who falls into that girl’s net.” 

Falconer, full of thought, went on with his dinner. 
They were out of hearing of the girl and her com- 
panion. At last the young fellow related how he had 
been at Bevin’s Club with his old schoolfellow, Halliday, 
where Beryl and Gilbert Farrer had also been. 

“ Well, all I hope is that your friend Halliday will 
keep clear of that unholy organisation,” said his 
companion. ” They’ll stick at nothing. But why 
are they friendly with your old schoolfellow ? What 
is the motive — eh ? ” 

I don’t know. He’s a mining engineer, and has 
just gone to the Red Sea prospecting for a gold mine 
of the ancient Egyptians.” 

” Ah ! Then he should beware. There’s no doubt 
some very subtle plot afoot. You should warn your 
friend to have a care.” 

” I can’t get at him. He’s gone out to Cape Ras 
Benas, and, like all prospectors, has not left an 
address.” 

“ That’s a pity. But when you get in touch with 
him again, warn him at once to avoid Daddy and his 
crowd as he would a poison bowl. They’re dangerous — 
very dangerous. I heard from my old friend. Superin- 
tendent Tarrant, of Scotland Yard, aU about them. 
You recollect the Alleyn scandals in the papers about 
nine months ago ? Well, old Whittaker and the girl 
yonder were at the bottom of it all. They escaped 
prosecution for blackmail, but they had netted over 
ten thousand pounds out of old Mr. Alleyn.” 

Falconer now grew suspicious of Beryl’s acquain- 
tance with his chum. Why had she seen him off so 
affectionately ? 

” I wonder where Farrer is to-night ? ” 

Farrer I Why, he’s a bird of passage — the kind 
of man who eats his breakfast in London, dines in 
Paris, and lunches next day beyond the Mont Cenis 
tunnel. He’s one of the cleverest thieves in all Europe 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 193 

— with Daddy’s brain, of course, behind him,” was 
Franks’ reply. 

Falconer looked across the crowded room to where 
the old man and the girl were eating their dinner 
together. To others they appeared to be father and 
daughter. The man had an evening paper, and 
now and then glanced at it when the courses were 
finished. 

When Geoffrey and Franks rose, the former looked 
across and bowed as he went out, full of wonder and 
suspicion. 

The days that followed proved busy days for Geoffrey. 
An entirely new circuit for wireless telephony had 
been devised by the well-known radio-expert. Captain 
Meredith, at the Works, and it was being tested — low 
voltage on the anode of the valves and a high amperage 
on the aerial — an achievement which had been 
attempted for a year with little success. Here, however, 
the combined brains of the Marconi personnel were 
again persevering towards perfection, and it had fallen 
upon Geoffrey to assist in some of the most delicate 
and intricate experiments. 

Hence he had but little time to go up to London 
to see Sylvia. 

One day, about three months later, as he sat down 
to luncheon in the bright, airy ” officers’ mess ” at the 
Works, one of his fellow engineers, named Davies, 
seated opposite him, exclaimed : 

” There’s a big find of gold just made at a mine 
worked by the Pharaohs in Egypt. By Jove ! ” he 
added with a sigh, ” mining seems to be more profitable 
than wireless 1 ” 

Geoffrey, pricking up his ears, instantly asked : 

” Where is the mine situated ? ” 

” Somewhere on the Red Sea, close to the ruins of 
an ancient city — I forget the name of the place.” 

” Is it Berenice ? ” 

” Yes — that’s the name of the place. How do you 
know ? I was told in London yesterday, and I was 
told in confidence,” Davies said, 

N 


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194 

'' By whom ? 

" By a fellow I know named Farrer. He’s been out 
there and got a concession from the Egyptian Govern- 
ment. And he’s no doubt made a fortune. I wish 
I were in his shoes ! ” 

Geoffrey held his breath. 

Is your friend Farrer a mining engineer ? ” he 
asked. 

“ Not at all. He’s a speculator — bought the con- 
cession off somebody, I suppose. A lucky speculation. 
I met him the night before last at the Palais de Danse. 
He had with him a very pretty girl he called Beryl.” 

” And I suppose you met an old white-haired man 
named Whittaker ? ” 

“Oh, yes — ‘ Daddy,’ they called him,” was the reply. 

“ And perhaps you met them at Bevin’s night 
club — eh ? ” asked Falconer. 

“ How did you know that ? ” inquired his friend. 

“ Well — because I guessed it.” 

“ Then you also know Farrer ? ” 

“ Yes,” Geoffrey replied briefly, for the conversation 
had increased his wonder and suspicion. Along the 
table the conversation turned, as it always does, upon 
wireless research and the business of the Company, 
interspersed with personal chaff. At Chelmsford there 
is a daily reunion of heads of departments at luncheon, 
where the interchemge of ideas is always intellectual, 
for gathered there are men of the greatest scientiflc 
knowledge, mostly young, all enthusiastic, and all 
experts in their own branches of radio-telegraphy. 

Later that day young Falconer went into the testing 
department where Davies was busily engaged, and 
returned to the conversation they had had at luncheon. 

“ Is Farrer an intimate friend of yours ? ” asked 
Geoffrey. 

“Not intimate. I know Beryl, his pretty little 
friend. I’ve dined once or twice with him in town.” 

“ Have you ever met a fellow named Jack Halliday ?” 

“ No. Never heard the name. Why ? ” 

“ Well, because Halliday, who is an old school- 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 195 

fellow of mine, is prospecting for gold on the Red Sea 
coast.’' 

“ Ah I Then no doubt Fairer has bought his secret.” 

Perhaps he's stolen it,” Geoffrey suggested. 

” No,” declared his friend. ” Farrer is a real good 
fellow, most generous to his friends, and one of the 
most upright men I've ever met.” 

Geoffrey, reflecting upon what his friend Franks had 
told him, became more mystified. 

Where was Jack Halliday ? 

Next day Geoffrey, being in London, called at the 
address in Bayswater, which Jack had given him. 

The landlady said it was true that he had rooms 
there, but she had not seen him since he left for Egypt. 
About three weeks ago, however, she received a telegram 
from him, and this she produced. It had been dis- 
patched from Alexandria three weeks before, and asked 
Mrs. Gibbons to send through Pickford's by grande 
Vitesse his big black trunk addressed to Cook's baggage 
department at Marseilles, adding that he was unable to 
return to London at present, as he was sailing for Cuba. 

” And you have sent the trunk ? ” asked Geoffrey 
of the pleasant, round-faced woman. 

” It went on the day after I received the message. 
Pickford's collected it,” replied the landlady. 

” What did the trunk contain ? ” 

” Oh ! of that I have no idea, except that I think 
Mr. Halliday kept most of his business papers in it,” 
she said. ” Once it was open in his bedroom, and I 
saw in it a lot of papers tied up with pink tape, like 
lawyers use.” 

Falconer paused. Why had it been sent to Mar- 
seilles when his friend had these rooms as his pied-d- 
terre in London ? 

They were standing in Jack Halliday 's little sitting- 
room at the time, and he glanced around. Mrs. 
Gibbons pointed to one or two souvenirs of travel upon 
the walls, and a few curios upon a side-table which she 
kept carefully dusted in the eager expectation of her 
wandering lodger's return. 


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196 

Geoffrey Falconer left Bayswater with a distinct 
impression that something was radically wrong. He 
could not understand why Jack, if he were called from 
his prospecting upon the Red Sea coast to go to Cuba, 
should have wanted his private papers sent to Cook’s 
at Marseilles — that great baggage organisation through 
which passes half the luggage of those going to India 
and the Far East. 

That night he spoke to Sylvia, telling her the whole 
facts. 

“ I believe with you, Geoff, that something is wrong. 
Why should Mr. Farrer, who is not an expert mining 
engineer like your friend Halliday, be in possession of 
the secret of the Berenice Mine ? ” 

“ I mean to make it my business to inquire,” replied 
the young fellow. ‘‘ Jack shall not suffer if I can 
help it.” 

Falconer did not allow the grass to grow beneath 
his feet, for next day he was on the alert. The telegram 
had been sent by the Eastern Company’s cable from 
Alexandria, but at ten o’clock that morning he inquired 
of S.U.H. (Ras-el-Tin), the radio station at Alexandria, 
whether the Englishman, Mr. Halliday, could be found 
in that city. 

Half an hour later there came back a reply that 
inquiry had been made at the chief post-office 
at Alexandria, but nobody of that name was 
known there. 

The next message Falconer sent was to the engineer- 
in-charge at Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, south of Cape 
Ras Benas, asking him if he had heard anything of 
the young mining prospector. Jack Halliday. 

The answer by wireless was ” Wait — wait — wait : 
for two hours.” 

Geoffrey waited. Two hours later Port Sudan replied 
that nothing was known of Mr. Halliday, and suggested 
that inquiry be made of Cairo. But the high-power 
station at Abu Zabal, outside Cairo, later on answered 
as follows to the experimental call-signal he had used : 

” 2.A.Z. from S.U.S. Reply to your inquiry re 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 197 

mining engineer Halliday, can obtain no knowledge 
of him here except that he was at Ras Benas two months 
ago." 

That night Falconer went up to London, and with 
apparent idleness, he lounged into Bevin’s night club. 
The place was crowded, and the supper-room full after 
the theatre. It was not, however, long before he espied 
the man he sought. 

“ Hulloa, Farrer ! " he cried in warm welcome, and 
a moment later he bent over the hand of his well-dressed 
companion. Beryl Hessleton. “ Why, I thought you 
were abroad ! " exclaimed Geoffrey. 

“ Gilbert got back some time ago," replied Beryl. 
“He's had a lovely time in Egypt. I only wish I 
had been there." 

“Yes," said the smartly-groomed man in evening 
clothes, “ I really had a tophole time in Cairo. And 
afterwards I went up the Nile to Assouan. There I 
met your friend Halliday. He's found that ancient 
mine, and I've bought it from him. He's gone to 
Cuba." 

“ Did you buy it ? " asked Geoffrey in surprise. 
“ Then I suppose Halliday will soon be back in town 
again — eh ? " 

“ No, I don't think so. He's been engaged by some 
big firm of American mining engineers to prospect 
for iron in Cuba, I believe. Anyhow, when we met at 
the Cataract Hotel, in Assouan, he was full of it. He 
didn't seem to think that the mine in Berenice was 
worth very much — ^worked out centuries ago, he said. 
So he sold it to me with the concession — lock, stock, 
and barrel." 

“ And you will re-sell it to a company, I suppose ? " 

“ Perhaps. I don't quite know yet. I've one or 
two people in the city ready to take it up." 

“ But if the mine is worked out, of what use is it ? " 

“ I don't think that Halliday really explored it very 
much. He found it, but just at the moment he received 
the tempting offer from America ; so he was glad to 
get rid of it. I went over to Ras Ben as before I 


198 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

bought it, and looked into the hole in the sand which 
gave entrance to the ancient workings." 

" Well, I hope you will find that it is still a rich mine. 
Gold is sadly wanted now that America holds all that 
we had before the war." 

" That’s just it," said the smartly-dressed man. 
" Old Julius Evenden used that selfsame argument 
yesterday when I put the prospect before him." 

" Then you’ve offered it to Evenden ? " asked 
Falconer, naming one of the greatest financial houses 
in the city. 

"Yes, and I believe he’ll take it up. If so, it will 
mean a fortune for me." 

" Oh 1 you always were terribly lucky, Gilbert ! " 
laughed Beryl. " Let’s go across and have a drink. 
I’m sure Mr. Falconer wants to wish you good-luck 1 " 

And the trio passed along to the little bar just off 
the dancing-room. 

A Marconigram sent from Fenchurch Street to Mar- 
seilles next day by Falconer elicited the fact, from 
Cook's Agency, that the black trunk received from 
London addressed to Mr. Halliday had been claimed 
three days after its arrival. 

Again Geoffrey inquired by wireless for a description 
of the man who had claimed it, but the reply was that 
he was " an elderly Englishman " ! 

Though Geoffrey was very full of work, experi- 
menting upon the new circuit for wireless telephony, 
nevertheless he devoted aU his spare time to solving 
the whereabouts of his old school chum. And in this 
Sylvia gladly assisted him. 

By constantly spending his evenings amid the gay 
crowd at Bevin’s he was able to watch Gilbert Farrer 
pretty closely. He often met the sprightly Beryl, 
who was never loth to dance with him, Geoffrey being 
an unusually good dancer, and good-looking into the 
bargain. So by being on friendly terms with the girl 
Falconer was enabled to keep Farrer under observation. 

Farrer knew, of course, of Geoffrey’s friendship 
with the mining engineer, but that fact did not concern 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 199 

him now that he had purchased his interest in the 
re-discovered mine of the Pharaohs. 

At Bevin’s, late one night, Geoffrey had been dancing 
with Beryl, Farrer being absent. He had not looked in 
all night, and it was already three o'clock in the morning. 
Geoffrey was about to return to his club when a white- 
haired, benevolent-looking old gentleman, whom he 
at once recognised as “ Daddy " Whittaker, the notorious 
crook, came in and advanced to meet the girl, who, 
in turn, introduced him to her companion. 

" Seen Gilbert to-night ? " asked old Mr. Whittaker 
eagerly of Beryl. 

“ No ; I haven't seen him all day. He promised 
to take me to lunch at the Pall Mall, but he never 
turned up — and he didn't ‘ 'phone '." 

" Ah ! he’s busy,” replied the old. man in a low 
voice. He fixed up that little matter with Evenden 
this afternoon. They are sending out two experts 
to Egypt at the end of the week.” 

” What 1 ” cried the girl. " The Berenice Mine 
sold 1 Then Gilbert’s made his fortune I He always 
was a lucky fellow.” 

“ Yes ; but he doesn’t want it known yet,” the old 
fellow went on confidentially. So say nothing about 
it.” 

" Farrer told me about his purchase of the mine,” 
Geoffrey remarked quite casually. "It's most inter- 
esting — is it not ? My friend. Jack Halliday, 
re-discovered it after the secret of its existence had 
been lost for two thousand years.” 

At mention of Halliday the white-haired old man 
glanced at him quickly, but his manner did not alter 
in the least. 

” Yes ; I believe Gilbert bought it from a man named 
Halliday, together with the concession which he’s got 
from the Egyptian Government. Anyhow this mine 
could not be in better hands than those of Evenden. 
Of course it may be exhausted. But the experts they 
are sending out will soon decide that.” 

” In any case a company will be formed to run it, I 


200 


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suppose ? asked Beryl, whereupon the crafty old man 
smiled knowingly, as he remarked : 

” An ancient gold mine always attracts subscribers.” 

Two days later Geoffrey Falconer sat in the old- 
fashioned room of Mr. Julius Evenden, the world- 
famous financier, and made inquiry regarding the 
Berenice Gold Mine. 

At first the head of the great financial house, whose 
dealings were w’orld-wide, was inclined to resent undue 
intrusion into his business dealings with Gilbert Farrer, 
until the young fellow explained that his old school- 
fellow had, owing to Professor Harte’s discovery of 
the hieroglyphics, gone to the ruins of the ancient 
Egyptian city for the purpose of searching for the 
long-forgotten mine. 

“ I never heard Professor Harte’s name in connection 
with the affair,” said old Mr. Evenden. ” Of course, 
he is one of our greatest Egyptologists. Perhaps he 
is on the telephone,” and he rang his bell and gave his 
clerk instructions to endeavour to get through to 
the Professor. 

Ten minutes later Mr. Evenden was speaking with 
the Professor, who lived at Wimbledon, and urged him, 
if possible, to call at Great Winchester Street that 
afternoon. 

The hour fixed was four o’clock, and Geoffrey was 
present at the interview. 

When Mr. Evenden informed the great Egyptologist 
that he had purchased all interest in the re-discovered 
mine from Gilbert Farrer, he stood amazed. 

” But surely my friend Halliday, to whom I gave a 
copy of the inscription upon the ruins of the Temple 
of Isis at Berenice, and whom I trust implicitly, would 
never have parted with his interest in the mine without 
first consulting me ! ” he cried. 

” Here is the transfer,” replied Mr. Evenden, handing 
the Professor a document. ” It was signed before a 
French Notary-Public in Alexandria you will see.” 

The old Professor adjusted his pince-nez, and after 
reading the document carefully, examined the signature. 


201 


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“ That is forged ! he declared at once. “ I know 
Jack Halliday’s signature extremely well. I have 
some of his most recent letters here/' and he took 
several letters from his pocket. These all three 
examined very closely. Some were signed " Jack," 
others “J. Halliday." But in no case did the signature 
on the document exactly correspond with the signature 
on the letters ! 

“You see the last letter was dated from Alexandria 
six weeks ago, and speaks of his success, and his intention 
of coming straight home," the Professor remarked. 

“Then where is he now — and why has his luggage 
been sent so urgently to Marseilles and claimed ? " 
asked Falconer. 

Mr. Evenden thereupon became suspicious, and 
related his dealings with Gilbert Farrer, and how he 
had already paid him a considerable sum on account, 
until the reports of the engineers he was sending to 
Egypt should be forthcoming. 

“ There is no doubt that Halliday has re-discovered 
the workings," said the Professor. “ But where is he 
now ! He seems to have mysteriously disappeared. 

“ The only man who knows his whereabouts is Gilbert 
Farrer," declared Geoffrey decisively. “ For what 
reason was that trunk containing his private papers 
sent so hurriedly to Marseilles ? " 

“ That we must discover," declared Mr. Evenden. 
“ Our policy must be to act without arousing Farrer 's 
suspicions," he added. 

Thereupon the three sat down and evolved a plan. 

The first step was taken by Geoffrey, who, through 
Beryl, discovered the whereabouts of “ Daddy " 
Whittaker. Next day he met him by appointment 
in the Park, and as they were walking together, Sylvia, 
who was dressed as a tourist, took a secret snapshot 
of them as they passed. 

This photograph was quickly developed, and that 
same night Fdconer left with it for Marseilles. 

Two days later he showed it to the employ^ at Cook's 
baggage dep6t, who at once, and without hesitation, 


202 


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declared the elder man to be the person who claimed 
the trunk addressed to Mr. Halliday. The trunk had 
been signed for and taken away on a taxi-cab. The 
signature in the book was that of J. Halliday/' 
But it certainly was not Jack’s 1 

Geoffrey took the rapide back to Paris that night, 
sorely puzzled. What had become of his old chum ? 
Marconigrams were sent broadcast in search of him. 
The passenger lists of six ships sailing from Marseilles 
to Cuba were examined, but in no case was there any 
trace of any such person in the lists. 

Early in the morning, as the express halting at 
Laroche awakened him, it suddenly crossed his mind 
that Jack’s identity was being obliterated by some 
clever combination of the crooks. In Paris he would go 
to the Bureau of the Surety and make inquiries. 

At noon he was in the dull, drab office of the famous 
French detective, Gaston Meunier, to whom he told 
the story, and asked whether he thought his friend 
had met with foul play. 

The little bald-headed official raised his shoulders 
and replied that, in view of the fact that the trunk 
had been sent to Marseilles, it was quite possible 
that Monsieur Halliday had returned from Egypt to 
France. 

Then they went into dates. Afterwards the great 
detective rose, and left him. Ten minutes later he 
reappeared, having a number of police photographs 
of persons who had been found dead, suicides, and 
those wilfully murdered, whom the police both in Paris 
and in the Departments had failed to identify. 

The period covered was six months. 

With great eagerness Geoffrey Falconer examined 
one after another — ^many of them pictures of recovered 
bodies, a terrible, gruesome collection — when at last 
he came across the picture of a man lying face upward 
on the grass. 

'' That’s Jack 1 ” he exclaimed wildly. " I have 
no hesitation in identifying him ! ” 

Monsieur Meunier turned to the back of the large 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 203 

unmounted photograph, and read what was written 
there as follows : 

An unknown. Supposed to be English. Dis- 
covered at 7.10 a.m., on October 28th, behind a 
small pottery factory, a mile from the village of St. 
Uze, close to Valence, Department of the Dr6me, 
The medical examination showed the person to have 
died from some vegetable poison. It is believed 
that he was deposited at the spot during the night 
from a passing car. No arrest has been made. Any 
details of identification to be sent to the Prefect 
of the Dr6me.” 

Three days later Geoffrey arrived at Charing Cross 
accompanied by an agent of the Paris Surety, who at 
once applied for the arrest and extradition of the 
adventurer, Gilbert Fairer. 

This took place when Farrer called at Mr. Evenden^s 
office next day — and two months later, at his trial 
before the Assizes of the Seine, the clever assassin 
who had stolen poor Jack Halliday’s secret was 
sentenced to penal servitude for life. 

At the present moment he is still in the convict 
prison at Lyons, while his friend Beryl and “ Daddy '' 
Whittaker, who were both deeply implicated in the 
plot, were each sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude 
at the Old Bailey. 

The great Berenice Gold Mine is being worked with 
huge success, but the profits which should have been 
poor Jack's are being paid regularly to his widowed 
mother, who lives in seclusion in Pembrokeshire, deeply 
mourning the loss of one of the finest and bravest 
of Englishmen. 


204 


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CHAPTER XI 

THE MARKED MAN 

The military wireless station at Aldershot had just 
finished sending the usual extracts from the press to 
the headquarters of the Rhine Army at Cologne, when 
Geoffrey Falconer, with the telephones still over his 
ears, lowered the wave-length of his reception set, and 
began to listen to the strains of an orchestra being 
played at The Hague. 

It was a Sunday afternoon, and the Dutch Concert,” 
to which all wireless men in England listen so eagerly, 
was in progress. 

Seated in his own experimental laboratory at Warley 
he leaned his elbows upon the operating-bench and 
listened. 

Who would have dreamed a couple of years ago that 
a concert given at The Hague could be heard with 
distinctness by wireless in every comer of the United 
Kingdom ! A comet solo at the moment being played 
was loud and perfectly clear. He turned a switch, 
when from the black trumpet of the loud-speaker tele- 
phone on the table the sound became so amplified that 
the instmment could be heard in any part of the house. 

During the day he had been engaged upon some 
highly interesting experiments upon a crystal producing 
oscillations, audible frequency currents being obtained 
by two metal electrodes dipped into the powder of a 
certain crystal. The matter was extremely technical, 
and would not be understood by any but radio experi- 
menters ; therefore, I need not further describe it. 
Suffice it to say that all the time Geoffrey could spare 
from the Works at Chelmsford he devoted to research 
in his own laboratory at home. 

Mrs. Beverley and Sylvia were away in the Trossachs, 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 205 

hence he seldom went to London save when duty took 
him up to Marconi House. 

Geoffrey listened to several songs from The Hague, 
and then put down the head-*phones, switched his 
aerial wires to earth, and went out into the pleasant 
old-world garden to smoke a cigarette. The afternoon 
was clear and bright, and along the grass path of the 
long rose walk he strolled, his mind full of the scientific 
problems which he had been endeavouring all the 
morning to solve. He wandered to the lawn and sat 
down in the summer-house awaiting the Professor, 
for always about that hour he, too, came forth from 
his study to enjoy a cigar. Suddenly, however, the 
housemaid appeared saying that he was wanted on the 
and telephone. 

He hastened to the instrument in the hall, when he 
found himself speaking to one of his fellow-engineers, 
named Jerrold, who lived at Witham, and who had a 
private wireless station similar to his own not far from 
the Marconi station there. 

“ I say. Falconer,'’ he exclaimed, have you been 
listening lately ? ” 

Yes. Till about twenty minutes ago.” 

Ah 1 Then you didn’t hear that message to you — 
did you ?” 

“No. What message ? ” asked Geoffrey. 

“ Oh, somebody on the wireless ’phone about sixteen 
hundred metres wave-length, called you by name, 
Geoffrey Falconer, Warley, Essex, England.” 

“ Yes. What did he say ? ” 

“ I don’t know whether it was a man’s voice or a 
woman’s. If a man’s it was unusually high-pitched 
The modulation was not very good, though I heard 
the words quite distinctly, and wondered if you also 
heard them. It was a kind of warning to you.” 

“ Warning ! ” echoed the young Marconi engineer. 
“ In what way ? ” 

“ Well, whoever was calling you evidently did not 
know your call -signal, so called your name. And then 


2o6 tracked by wireless 

he went on to warn you not to go East. If you do, you 
go at your peril ! ” 

“ Not to go East 1 How strange ! " Geoffrey 
remarked. 

“ Yes ; it’s a bit uncanny — isn’t it ? He repeated 
it several times, and then added the words : Anyone 
hearing this urgent message, will they kindly give it 
to Geoffrey Falconer at Warley, Essex, England ? ’ ” 

“ Some silly ass having a joke,” laughed Falconer. 
” I heard the other day that some horrible spook 
message was given by a practical joker over the radio- 
phone, and the fellow who heard it, being a spiritualist, 
nearly died of fright. Perhaps it’s the same fellow up 
to his tricks again ! ” 

” Perhaps. We’ll listen again for him, and if he 
gives any more warnings we’ll put the direction-finders 
on him, and he'll very soon have his license taken away 
— if he has one,” said Jerrold. 

"Well, it’s curious,” exclaimed Geoffrey laughing. 
" I wonder why I’m forbidden to go East, and what 
peril is in store for me ? ” 

" Ah ! that I don’t know. The message was given 
at twenty-eight minutes past three. So we’ll listen 
to-morrow at the same time, and on the same wave- 
length.” 

" Righto 1 ” said Falconer, hanging up the receiver 
and then strolling back into the garden, wondering 
what the message really meant. 

He had no intention of going East, save that he had 
a week before received instructions to proceed to 
Lucerne, where, close by, on the Tomlishorn, the highest 
peak of the Pilatus, above Alpnachstad, the Marconi 
Company were erecting a one-and-a-half kilowatt 
telephone and telegraph set ordered by the Swiss 
Government, the set used at the meeting of the League 
of Nations at Geneva having proved such a great 
success. 

Lane, one of the engineers, was already out there, 
and he had been ordered to follow him and super- 
intend the fitting and testing of the station before it 


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207 

was handed over to the Swiss authorities. Switzer- 
land certainly lay to the East, but what mysterious 
peril awaited him there was certainly obscure. At 
first he grew a trifle anxious in view of his previous 
adventures, but later that evening he decided that it 
was some amateur who, having learned of his impending 
departure, was playing a practical joke. Yet curiously 
enough only about three or four people at the Marconi 
Works knew of the order he had received. 

At dinner that night he mentioned the incident to 
the Professor, but both decided that it was only some 
silly joke. 

On the following Thursday he left Charing Cross 
for Lucerne, where, at the Schweizerhof, that well- 
known hotel facing the lake. Lane, who had come by 
boat from Alpnach, came to meet him. Next day they 
ascended to the famous H6tel Pilatuskulm, where they 
took up their quarters, only half an hour’s walk by a 
good path to the site of the new wireless station. 

Already the two one-storeyed buildings, and the aerial 
upon masts of steel lattice, were erected. The 
material had all come out from England, and the 
contractors had finished their work on the masts. 
Indeed, Lane and his colleagues from Chelmsford had 
already commenced their work of fitting the apparatus. 

The wireless station which the Swiss Government 
had ordered was situated high upon the wild rocky 
mountains, and was intended for the communication 
of post-office messages with Rome, Vienna, and Paris, 
the apparatus being the last word in Marconi invention. 

The two great buildings which comprise the hotel 
were full to overflowing, as it usually is in the autiunn 
season, a gay cosmopolitan crowd, who dined and danced 
and went on excursions either mountaineering or along 
the great blue lake to Kussnacht to see Tell’s Chapel, 
to Vitznau, Brunnen, or Fluelen. From the verandas 
there spread a wonderful panorama of lake and mountain 
with the various peaks, with the names of which the 
visitor so soon becomes familiar. 

Geoffrey was standing alone on the veranda early 


2o8 


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one morning admiring the wonderful view in the 
morning light. There was passing along a very feeble, 
white-haired, white-bearded old man, accompanied 
by a handsome dark-haired, well-dressed young woman, 
who, from the attention she paid him, was palpably 
his daughter. The old fellow walked decrepitly as 
one of advanced age, and ever and anon he halted to 
take in the wondrous scene. 

As they passed by they spoke in a tongue with which 
Geoffrey was unfamiliar. But the yoimg woman, he 
saw, wore a wedding ring. 

Their eyes met, and in hers he noted a strange, 
appealing look — ^an expression which, being quite 
unusual, caused him to ponder. He was rapidly 
becoming a cosmopolitan after his various missions 
abroad on behalf of the Marconi Company. 

All that day he spent in the wireless hut high upon 
the bare, rocky mountain, carefully fitting the instru- 
ments which were to give such a wide range of tele- 
graphy and speech — the very latest devices that had 
been invented in the research department at Chelms- 
ford, for, after all, the real brains of wireless are centred 
in that old-fashioned Essex town. 

That night he was back with Lane at the big hotel, 
and dined in the great salle d manger, amid the gay 
laughter and chatter. 

Across in a corner sat the white-bearded old man 
with his married daughter. He seemed rather deaf, 
for ever and anon she bent to speak with him. And 
as she did so, he saw that she was most solicitous of 
his welfare, as only a daughter could be. 

Later that night, there being the usual dance in the 
big ballroom, Geoffrey went in, and being attracted 
by her, invited her to dance with him, and she 
accepted. 

She was alone. The old man had retired to bed. 

Geoffrey’s interest was purely one of curiosity. The 
girl-wife seemed to be carrying out her duty to her 
father, and was terribly bored in doing so. 

Before they parted that night he learned that she 


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209 

had come from Serbia, and that her name was Marya 
Pavlovitch. She had married a state official a year 
and a half before. Her father’s name was Colonel 
Yovan Vanoff, a well-known officer of the King’s 
Guard at Belgrade, who had fought valiantly against 
the Turks in the first Balkan war, and had gained 
distinction at the decisive Battle of Kumanovo. 

“ My husband is in England,” she told Geoffrey, 
speaking English well. ** He is attached to the Serbian 
Mission. So I am here with my father, who, alas I 
is becoming daily more feeble.” 

Next evening they met again — and the next. The 
old man was most affable, and day after day they had 
long chats in French, in which Lane often joined. 

One afternoon Geoffrey went by boat along to Lucerne, 
eager and anxious. Mrs. Beverley and Sylvia had 
arrived at the Schweizerhof, that great hotel which 
overlooks the lake. They had tired of the Trossachs, 
and also of dusty London, so in accordance with young 
Falconer’s suggestion, they had arrived to spend a 
couple of weeks in ” lovely Lucerne ” — that town 
in which, before the war, one could spend a week under 
the wing of any tourist company for the modest sum of 
five guineas, railway fare included. 

Geoffrey met Sylvia and her mother, and after half 
an hour in the great lounge of the hotel they dined 
together. The ” Wild Widow ” was charmed with 
the hotel and its outlook, while Sylvia, delighted 
at the retirement of the penurious Lord Hendlewycke, 
who now no longer visited them, contrived to snatch a 
few moments alone with her lover. 

” Do you remember, Geoffrey, what you told me — 
that mysterious message by wireless telephone warning 
you not to go East ? ” she said anxiously, as they sat 
in the corridor after dinner, while her mother had 
gone upstairs. 

” Yes,” he replied. ” But really the whole thing 
was so ridiculous. It was, I’m convinced, only some 
amateur playing a practical joke.” 

” Perhaps. But you should take no risks, dear,” 
0 


210 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

she replied. " I don't like the situation. Remember 
all that has passed." 

‘‘ Why are you so anxious ? " he asked. 

“ WeU," she answered, glancing around, you are, 
no doubt, a marked man, Geoff. You have been able 
to upset the plans of various conspirators, and they, 
no doubt, seek their revenge. Hence, be careful — do 
be very careful." 

Geoffrey laughed. He ridiculed the idea that any 
vengeance should be attempted upon him. 

I have only done my duty, my dear Sylvia 1 " 
he laughed. My duty to the company and my duty 
to the Nation. Everybody surely understands that." 

"No," the girl replied ; " everybody does not 

understand. You, as an honest man, are at enmity 
with a certain revolutionary section of society. They 
know it. And they may lay their plans accordingly," 
she said wamingly. " I, of course, have no knowledge 
of any such plot — but I do urge you, Geoffrey, to keep 
very wide awake. I have some strange intuition that 
something may happen to you. Why — I can't tell 
you ! " 

" My dear Sylvia, I hope I am always wide awake," 
he laughed, kissing her clandestinely in the shadows, 
while a few moments later Mrs. Beverley reappeared. 

Next morning mother and daughter went up by the 
railway from Alpnach to the Pilatuskulm, where they 
lunched with the young engineer and his friend Lane, 
and afterwards ascended to the newly constructed 
wireless station. It was not yet in working order, 
but Sylvia was highly interested, for she had by that 
time quite a good superficial knowledge of the apparatus 
and the power-plant, which, by the way, was almost 
a replica of the set which Geoffrey had installed at 
Bouvignes Aerodrome, in Belgium. 

In the evening they went down again to Lucerne, 
but not until the following evening did Geoffrey again 
see the girl with whom he was so deeply in love. As 
soon as he had finished his work in that high-up spot 
on the Tomlishom, he returned to the hotel, and after 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 21 1 

changing his clothes, descended to Lucerne and dined 
with the South American widow and her daughter. 

Afterwards he went out with Sylvia on to the 
veranda. The night was a glorious one, the full 
moon rendering the lake and mountains a scene fairy- 
like and beautiful such as is presented perhaps nowhere 
else in the world. The view from the Schweizerhof 
on a moonlit night is always superb. 

Again Sylvia returned to the strange warning from 
the ether which Geoffrey had received. She again 
confessed that she somehow felt uncomfortable about 
it. But her lover only pooh-poohed the affair, telling 
her that it was not the first time that jokes had been 
played by wireless. 

“ Why, not long ago,” he said, ” the operator at one 
of the aerodromes for civil flying was spoken to over 
the wireless telephone by the Air Minister himself, 
who explained that he was flying from Scotland in a 
certain machine, and that in half an hour he intended 
to descend at that aerodrome. There was a great bustle 
at the news, but though they waited till dark the 
Minister never arrived. And not until next day did 
they learn that it was a hoax played by one of the 
pilots.” 

The girl laughed, but still she urged Geoffrey to 
take care. 

'‘You really cannot be too careful,” she declared. 
“ I tell you I have once or twice experienced a strange 
presage of evil.” 

” Oh, you make me feel quite nervy I ” he declared, 
and then, as the air was cold, they returned to the palm- 
court, where Mrs. Beverley was seated. 

The widow and her daughter remained in Lucerne 
for a fortnight, and then leaving Geoffrey to complete 
his work, went on by way of the Gothard to Milan. 

Meanwhile Marya Pavlovitch and her father remained 
at the H 6 tel Pilatuskulm, and both Geoffrey and Lane 
frequently met them. The girl- wife was most devoted 
to her father, who was often in a grumpy mood, as is 
usual with men of advanced age and slight infirmity. 


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Young Madame Pavlovitch was naturally filled with 
curiosity concerning the new wireless station — for to 
ladies wireless is usually an enigma to be studied as 
part of Nature’s half-revealed problem — and several 
times, leaving her father, she had ascended the steep 
rock-girt road to the higher heights where, upon a 
little grass-grown plateau, the two new huts had been 
built. 

Three weeks passed. Geoffrey completed his work, 
and made tests. The results were perfectly satis- 
factory. The telephony was reported as “ R.Q " over 
the Alps as far as Genoa, and to Marseilles, Coltano 
in Italy, Munich, Paris, and other places. 

The range of speech was even further than what 
had been anticipated at the Works at Chelmsford. 
Other wireless systems had been tried by the Swiss 
Government, and had not come up to the standard 
required. But here the Marconi Company had scored 
another success over its competitors. 

Since Sylvia's departure, Geoffrey had often met 
young Madame Pavlovitch, sometimes on the boat 
between Alpnach and Lucerne, and sometimes in the 
streets of Lucerne, for she went there nearly every 
other day to obtain medicines for her father, she 
explained. On two occasions he had seen her enter a 
large detached private house in the Bruchstrasse, not 
far from the S5magogue. She had not, however, seen 
him, and he had not mentioned the matter. Yet it 
seemed apparent that the reason of her visits to Lucerne 
was to call at the house in question. And further, 
she always seemed annoyed whenever he met her on 
the way backwards or forwards along the lake. 

One day Geoffrey had returned from the wireless 
station, and was taking his tea in the lounge, when the 
hotel manager came to him hurriedly and mentioned 
that the Colonel had been taken suddenly unwell, 
and that his daughter could not be found. She had gone 
to Lucerne after luncheon, he believed. 

As the matter seemed one of urgency, and as the 
young Englishman was going to spend the evening in 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 213 

Lucerne, he resolved while on board the boat to go to 
the house in the Bruchstrasse, see whether Marya was 
there, and inform her of her father’s illness. 

This he did. A rather tall, elderly man-servant 
opened the door, and when he inquired for Madame 
Pavlovitch he ushered him into a cosy, beautifully- 
furnished room, and without inquiring his name, closed 
the door and left him. 

The room was divided from the adjoining apartment 
by long white-enamelled folding doors which stood 
slightly ajar. The man-servant must have forgotten 
to inform madame of his presence there, for he had 
been in the room hardly half a minute when into the 
next room, a big place decorated in wLite and gold, 
there came several men who looked like officers in 
mufti, accompanied by three women, one of whom was 
little Madame Pavlovitch. 

He could not fail to hear what they were earnestly 
discussing in French. He stood aghast. They were 
planning the assassination of Andra Nikolitch, the 
well-known Serbian statesman, who was now President 
of the Council, and was at the moment staying with 
the Serbian Crown Prince at the Luzemer-Hof ! 

The terms in which the matter was being discussed 
admitted of no doubt that the Colonel’s pretty daughter 
was at its head, and that the attempt was to be made 
one morning when the statesman took his usual walk 
under the trees of the Schweizerhof-Quai. 

Geoffrey stood astounded at his discovery. From 
their conversation it was also plain that at the same 
time other Ministers were to be tnurderously attacked 
in Belgrade. 

Suddenly the serious fact dawned upon the young 
fellow that if he were discovered there he would not 
be allowed to leave that house alive. Balkan con- 
spirators are not to be trifled with. They hold human 
life of but little account. 

Falconer saw that his only chance of safety was to 
face the situation boldly. He placed his hand upon 
his hip-pocket to reassure himself that his revolver was 


214 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

there. Then, suddenly, he stepped forth into the big 
room and stood before those who had assembled to 
discuss their dastardly plans. 

His appearance caused a sensation almost electrical. 

‘‘ Why ! " gasped the dark-eyed Marya. “It is 
M’sieur Falconer ! “ 

Next second he was surrounded by the angry company, 
and in more than one hand he saw an automatic pistol. 
He was besieged by questions. What could he reply ? 

He attempted to explain the situation, declaring that 
he was simply a victim of circumstances, adding : 

“ I confess I have overheard your most interesting 
discussion ! “ 

“ The Englishman has been spying upon us ! “ cried 
a tall, rather elegant man in a dark suit. “If he is 
not silenced — and at once — he will tell the police ! 
Remember, comrades, he is our enemy ! “ 

“Yet M'sieur Falconer is also my friend ! “ declared 
the pretty Marya, springing forward boldly. “I, 
however, had no idea that he was in this house ! “ 

Geoffrey tried to explain, but the clamour of the 
others was too great. He told madame that her father 
was ill, but they only laughed — declaring it to be an 
excuse. Hence he saw that unwittingly he had entered 
a veritable hornets’ nest, and that retreat was impos- 
sible. If he valued his life he would be compelled to 
stay and face the music. 

He defied them, daring them to lay a finger upon 
him. But at madame ’s urgent request he withdrew 
his words. 

“ This house is closely guarded,’’ she explained, 
“ but the servant, Boris, having seen us together at 
the hotel and at other places, no doubt believed you 
to be one of us. ’ 

“ And you must become one I ’’ declared an elderly 
man who seemed to be in authority over the rest. 
“ You know our secret 1 So you will join us — to-night 
— now ! From this moment you will be watched night 
and day. If you attempt to warn the authorities you 
will pay for it with your life 1 ’’ 


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Geoffrey protested, but in vain. 

Then he was sworn in English and in French. 

Afterwards, Marya Pavlovitch turned to the young 
wireless engineer, and said : 

“ I will now tell you the truth, M’sieur Falconer. I 
told you that my husband is in England with the 
Serbian Mission, but the fact is that he was recalled 
to Belgrade two months ago, and on arrival he was 
immediately arrested by order of his enemy, the Presi- 
dent of the Council, Andra Nikolitch. A false charge 
of treason was brought against him, and he was tried 
in secret and shot,” and her voice trembled with emotion. 
'' He was entirely innocent. Of that I know. Hence we 
have resolved to rid our country of certain of its unjust 
rulers.” 

” Then you are a widow, madame,” Falconer 
remarked. ” And what is intended is your revenge 
— eh ? My silence will cost Andra Nikolitch and others 
their lives ! ” he added very slowly. 

“Yes,” said the man who had urged his companions 
to kill him there and then. “ Understand, it is either 
your life — or theirs 1 ” 

The young engineer did not reply. 

“You are now one of us,” the man went on in a 
deep, hard voice. “ From this moment you will be 
closely watched, and any attempt you make to reveal 
what you know to any person will be followed imme- 
diately by death. Please do not forget that ! ” 

“ I must now hurry back to my father,” said madame. 
“ The meeting is at an end.” 

And Falconer left the house with her and returned 
to Alpnach. 

He could now understand Marya's wild, bitter hatred 
of the man who had sent her innocent husband to his 
death. On the way back he again mentioned it, but 
she seemed disinclined to discuss the tragedy. 

“ When is the blow to be dealt ! ” he asked in a low 
whisper in order not to be overheard. 

“ I do not know,” was her answer. ” The time is 
not fixed,” 


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But I do not like the idea of being constantly 
watched/' he said. “ It will really be most irritating." 

" If you had not submitted you would not have left 
that house alive," replied the pretty, dark-eyed young 
woman. 

" I have to thank you, madame," he replied. "Yet 
the knowledge I have gained has upset me considerably." 

" And do you not think that these fiends who 
murdered my husband richly deserve the fate we have 
in store for them ? " she asked. 

Upon that point, however, Falconer refused to 
express an opinion. 

As they entered the lounge of the hotel, he was 
surprised to see a thin-faced, elderly man seated in 
a chair pretending to read a paper. Instantly he 
recognised him as one of the group of plotters he had 
met in Lucerne. He had already reached the 
Pilatuskulm, and was undoubtedly there in order to 
keep observation upon him. Indeed he found that 
the man, who had given the name of Vulkovitch at 
the bureau, had engaged the room adjoining his own. 

He had hardly entered his room when there was a 
low tap on the door and Vulkovitch entered, with a 
word of apology. 

" I need not tell you, M’sieur Falconer, why I am here. 
The object of my visit is to impress upon you the neces- 
sity for complete secrecy. It was all the fault of Boris, 
who, believing you to be one of us, admitted you, 
but as you have now become associated with us, you 
must conform to the rules already laid down. If you 
breathe a single word of what is in progress, then I 
shall use this ! " 

And he produced from his inner pocket a large silver 
cigar-case. 

" This is not so harmless as it may appear," he went 
on. "It contains an explosive so powerful that if 
thrown down it would wreck half the hotel. 

" And incidentally blow you to pieces," remarked 
Falconer, regarding the case with interest. 

The man smiled, and replied quietly. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 217 

''If I have occasion to use it I shall myself take 
certain precautions. Only you would suffer, m’sieur." 

“ Well, I hope it won’t be necessary for you to send 
me into the next world,” laughed the young man. 
” But certainly the situation is a decidedly unpleasant 
one — for me.” 

” And equally for me,” the Serbian replied. ” I 
regret that I am selected for this not over-pleasant 
duty, and I only hope you will thoroughly understand 
what my friends have decided. So I wish you good- 
night,” and bowing politely he left the room. 

Geoffrey Falconer obtained but little sleep that 
night. The whole thing seemed like a nightmare — 
the oath of secrecy which he had taken, madame’s 
tragic story, and her fierce revenge. It seemed that 
she was paying all the expenses of that group of wild, 
political extremists from Belgrade. 

Next day everywhere Geoffrey went he was followed 
silently and unobtrusively by the man Vulkovitch. 
He had a chat with Lane, but within hearing of the 
man, and pleading being unwell, he did not go up to 
the wireless station, but remained in the hotel all day 
in sight of the silent watcher. 

He spent the afternoon with the little widow, 
whose father had recovered, but had not yet left his 
room. 

After tea they went for a stroll together along the 
mountain path, and Vulkovitch, noticing that he was 
with her, relaxed his vigilance. 

When alone she told him a great deal. She had 
been passionately fond of her late husband, who, before 
the war, had been assistant private secretary to King 
Peter of Serbia. Afterwards he had entered the diplo- 
matic service, serving at the Legation in Paris. Then, 
when war broke out, he joined his regiment and fought 
valiantly against the Austrians until the terrible retreat. 
After the Peace he had been appointed to the Serbian 
Mission sent to London. But for the past six months, 
because he had discovered scandals concerning certain 
of the Serbian Ministers, he had been a marked man, 


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and had eventually fallen the victim of a deliberate 
plot to close his lips by death. 

Her father, however, knew nothing of what was in 
progress. She withheld the truth of her widowhood 
from him on account of his weak state of health. 

I am greatly annoyed at being constantly watched 
as I am,” Geoffrey declared frankly. “lam unable to 
continue my work at the wireless station because your 
friends fear that I may reveal the truth to somebody. 
The situation is most unpleasant.” 

“ Yes ; I quite understand, M’sieur Falconer,” 
she said. “ It was quite by accident that Boris admitted 
you. You thought to perform a friendly action towards 
me, and instead you stepped into our group. But I 
beg of you to have patience. I feared last night that 
they might kill you. They are all desperate persons, 
I assure you.” 

“ Did you form the complot ? ” asked the young 
radio-engineer. 

“No. They did. They came to me and told me 
my husband had been tried by secret court-martial 
and executed, and then suggested revenge.” 

Geoffrey reflected a moment. 

“ They came to you suggesting that you should bear 
the expenses of the plot ? ” 

“Yes. I inherited a considerable fortune from my 
aunt, and they suggested that I should take this 
patriotic step, for by avenging the death of my poor 
husband I should rid Serbia of her enemies who are 
posing as her friends.” 

Geoffrey pointed out that there could be no excuse 
for assassination, but she instantly became angry, 
declaring that she demanded blood for blood. 

Two days passed. Wherever Falconer went the 
silent Vulkovitch watched him until it got upon his 
nerves. He scarcely dared to exchange words with 
Lane, who naturally grew curious as to his colleague’s 
change of manner, for he had suddenly become quite 
morose. And naturally, for were not the lives of 
several Serbian statesmen in his hands ? He longed 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 219 

to warn the Serbian Premier of his peril. But 
how ? 

He longed to leave Switzerland and fly back to 
England — but he knew the consequences. Those plotters 
would follow him, and he would share the same fate 
as^that intended for Andra Nikolitch and certain 
members of his Cabinet. 

The third day was a Wednesday, and he had learnt 
that on Frida}^ a meeting was to be held in Lucerne to 
fix for the following day the attempt upon the well- 
known statesman. 

He was beside himself in agony of mind. These 
men — men whom he had never met — were to be 
murdered in cold blood. Yet he was powerless to 
raise a finger to save them. King Alexander and his 
Queen Draga had long ago fallen victims of secret 
assassins, while more than one Minister in Serbia had 
died under suspicious circumstances. Both Serbia 
and Bulgaria — ^where the poor Prime Minister, 
StambuloS, and his successor, Petroff, had both been 
assassinated — were hotbeds of political intrigue. 

Geoffrey, though a threat of death was held over 
him, had during those two days acted with caution. 
On the Friday morning he met Lane in the lounge 
where the silent watcher was standing, and handed 
him a cigarette from his case, at the same time saying 
that he had to go into Lucerne, hence he could not go 
to the wireless station that day. 

Then he whispered a few quick words that caused 
his friend to start. 

Lane struck a match, but made only pretence of 
lighting his cigarette. 

Instead, he said : 

Very well. Cheerio ! Til see you here to-night. 
The station is on test now. You really must come up 
and see it to-morrow.'' And then he turned away. 

Two minutes later Lane was back in his bedroom 
alone, carefully examining his cigarette. Unrolling 
it, he found upon the paper a message written in an 
almost microscopical hand telling him of the meeting 


2Z0 


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of the conspirators at Lucerne that evening and its 
object, and urging him to take the paper at once to 
the Lucerne police. 

Lane contrived to get to Lucerne, where he saw 
the Prefect of Police and showed him the paper. It 
bore the address in the Bruchstrasse ; therefore, police 
agents at once kept observation upon the place, a fact 
which in secret Lane communicated to Falconer by a 
meaning glance at the luncheon table, for Falconer 
always sat at a little table with madame and her father, 
while Lane sat with two other men close by. One of 
the men was the silent watcher. 

Falconer, though young, was a man of quick initiative. 
He was in a cleft stick and surrounded by unscrupulous 
enemies. Therefore he had set his brains to outwit them. 

The final meeting of the plotters, before the Minister 
was to be assassinated by a bomb, was fixed for nine 
o’clock that night. At six o’clock he watched for 
madame, who was, he knew, going to Lucerne to be 
present. She came down, smartly dressed, and as 
she went out, he hastened and overtook her. 

“ Madame Pavlovitch,” he whispered, “ I want a 
word with you — a serious word.” 

She stopped suddenly, and then they strolled across 
the gravelled drive. 

” I know you are going to Lucerne. But I warn 
you not to go ! ” 

“ Why not ? ” she asked, surprised. 

“ Because if you do you will be arrested for con- 
spiracy,” he replied firmly. ” Further, you are only 
being made a tool of by a band of anarchists who are 
using your money for their own personal ends.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” she demanded resentfully. 

Have you betrayed us ? ” 

I have betrayed the men who have betrayed you,” 
was his answer. “ Let us walk along, and I’ll tell you 
the truth,” he added. 

Utterly amazed at the risk which the young English- 
man had taken, she strolled at his side and listened 
eagerly. 


221 


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Those people have lied to you," he said. “ They 
are hoping to carry out a scheme by which certain of 
your Ministers are to be killed from motives of personal 
vengeance." 

" How ? " 

They have told you a lurid story concerning your 
husband — that he has been executed. Instead he is 
in prison at Belgrade for six months. Next week he 
will be liberated ! " 

“ Alive ! " she gasped. Is Danilo alive ? He has 
never written to me ! " 

" Because your friends the conspirators have inter- 
cepted his letters. The man Vulkovitch was taken 
away from here directly after lunch, and since then 
I have been in secret wireless communication with the 
Minister of Justice in Belgrade, from whom I have 
discovered the true facts concerning your husband." 

She paused. 

" But I must go to Lucerne to-night," she said, 
somewhat disinclined to give credit to his story. 

" If you go there it will be at your peril. A raid 
will be made upon the house, and all will be arrested." 

" Are you fooling me, M'sieur Falconer ? " she asked, 
facing him. 

" I certainly am not," he replied. " Keep away 
from Lucerne, and you will find the whole of the men, 
who have been posing as your friends and taking your 
money under false pretences, in the hands of the police." 

At first she was undecided, but he repeated that if 
she went to Lucerne it was at her own risk. 

He had denounced the plotters, and thus saved the 
lives of innocent men — but he had given no information 
concerning her, he said. 

" Instead of going to Lucerne, leave Switzerland 
forthwith, madame," he urged. " Get away — now 
there is yet time. Within a week I guarantee that 
your husband will be free." 

The dark-haired young woman took Falconer’s 
advice, and two hours later, accompanied by her father, 
she left the hotel. Meanwhile the Lucerne police that 


222 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

night arrested the whole group, and found in the house 
bombs, firearms, and correspondence which proved 
beyond doubt the truth of what the young Englishman 
had written upon the cigarette-paper. 

With the exception of madame, the whole desperate 
group subsequently appeared before the Assize Court 
of Lucerne, and were all sent to long terms of 
imprisonment. 

But before the trial took place Geoffrey had received 
a letter from Marya, dated from Paris, telling him that 
her husband had reappeared as though from the grave, 
and that they were again united. 

And now the most curious part of the whole affair 
is to be related. 

Let it be told in Sylvia Beverley’s own words, as 
she told it to her lover in the drawing-room at Upper 
Brook Street a week later. 

“ My dear Geoff,” she said, as I told you, I had a 
curious presage of evil concerning you. "^^y, I can’t 
tell. Something seemed to impress upon my mind 
the fact that if you went East you would be in peril. 
Days- — ^weeks went on until I became obsessed by the 
feeling that something was about to happen to you. 
Perhaps it was an intuition because we love each other 
so dearly. Yet the fact remains, I was in fear. And 
because of that, I went to an amateur wireless experi- 
menter whom I know — a man at Folkestone — and I 
got him to speak that mysterious message to you over 
the radio-telephone — that message of warning ! ” 

He took her hand in his, and their lips met in a long, 
passionate caress. 


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223 


CHAPTER XII 

I 

THE crow's cliff 

Mrs. Beverley was giving one of her usual dinner- 
parties at Upper Brook Street. Among the guests 
were two Cabinet Ministers and their wives, for money 
can always command guests, the names of whom will 
be duly recorded in the society column of the Morning 
Post next day. 

Money buys publicity, and without the latter now-a- 
days one may as well live in suburbia, or in the peace 
of a country village. 

When the hostess and her guests went to the drawing- 
room, Geoffrey — who had just come back from making 
some adjustments at the wireless station at Renfrew — 
managed to snatch a quarter of an hour with Sylvia 
in the cosy little sitting-room next to the library. 

The young engineer had been telling her of his work 
up in Scotland, and of a pleasant Saturday he had spent 
up Loch Lomond, when the girl suddenly asked : 

“ How do you like Mrs. Mapleton, whom you took 
into dinner ? ” 

Oh, very nice," he replied. “ I suppose she’s 
a new friend of your mother ? ’’ 

“ No. We met her and her husband a year ago 
when we were at Hyeres. They live near Madrid, and 
have asked us to go and stay with them for a month 
at their villa outside the city. Mother has accepted. 
Didn’t I hear you say that you might be sent out on 
business to Madrid ? ’’ 

" Yes. There was some mention of it the other day,’’ 
Geoffrey replied. " They were having trouble with 
their valve-panel at the wireless station at Aranjuez, 
which belongs to the Compania National, and I heard 
that it was proposed that I should go out to see what 
I can make of it." 


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224 

How splendid if we are in Madrid together — eh ? ” 
exclaimed the girl enthusiastically. “I do hope we 
shall manage it. The Mapletons go back in six weeks' 
time, and we go with them. He's an English banker 
in Madrid.” 

Just at that moment one of the guests entered the 
room, so the lovers were forced to return to the drawing- 
room, where a little later Geoffrey found himself talking 
to the rather handsome young woman who had sat 
beside him at dinner. She was dark, with a very clear 
complexion and great black eyes, a graceful figure, 
and a sweet and winning smile. Her husband, to 
whom she introduced him, was some ten years her 
senior, a tall, rather spare man with an aquiline face 
somewhat bronzed by the southern sun. 

They chatted together, whereupon Mrs. Maple ton 
mentioned that Mrs. Beverley and her daughter were 
travelling with them to Madrid. Then Geoffrey 
remarked that he would, in all probability, be in the 
Spanish capital at the same time, and explained the 
reason of his journey. 

“ Well, if you are in Madrid, Mr. Falconer, you won’t 
fail to come and see us — ^will you ? ” urged the lady. 
“ We live out at El Pardo — only half an hour from 
Madrid.” 

Geoffrey thanked her, and promised that if he went 
to Spain he would certainly call upon her. 

Two months later he found himself at the old-fashioned 
H6tel de Pastor at Aranjuez, which is thirty miles from 
the capital, and not far from the great wireless station. 
After remaining there two days making his preliminary 
investigations of the work he had in hand, he one day 
took train to Madrid, and went out in a taxi along the 
terribly dusty road to El Pardo. 

He found the house without any difficulty — a great 
country mansion in the Spanish style — surrounded by 
beautiful grounds. The door was opened by an elderly 
English butler, who showed him in and took his card 
at once to his mistress. In a few seconds Sylvia, who 
had been eagerly watching her lover’s arrival, rushed 


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225 

forward and greeted him warmly, while almost at the 
same moment their hostess appeared and gladly 
welcomed the young fellow. 

It was just before luncheon, so Geoffrey, after being 
shown the glorious gardens and the views, was com- 
pelled to remain, and sat down with Mrs. Mapleton, her 
husband, the South American widow, and Sylvia. The 
meal was served with considerable pomp by the butler, 
Martin, the whole staff of servants being English. Mrs. 
Mapleton, when Martin was out of the room, remarked 
that she had become tired of the slovenly ways of 
Spanish servants, and therefore she had engaged English 
ones, all of them having been in service with English 
families in France or Italy. 

** Martin is, of course, our mainstay,’' she added. 
“ He speaks Spanish well, which is a great thing, as we 
naturally have many Spanish visitors.” 

'‘Yes,” said Mr. Mapleton ; “ Martin is a real treasure 
for a busy man like myself. He was in the service 
of the Marquis de Borja, secretary to Queen Marie 
Christine, and only left after his master’s death.” 

“ Then you are very lucky to get him,” remarked 
Mrs. Beverley. “ I know what it is to have a butler 
upon whom one can rely. A widow like myself is very 
handicapped in that respect. I am no judge of wine. 
I leave it all to my man, and I trust him implicitly.” 

” Just as we trust Martin,” said the banker’s good- 
looking wife, and then the entrance of the sedate and 
respectful servant put an end to further discussion. 

Luncheon over, Mrs. Mapleton proposed a run in 
the car over to El Escorial, the favourite summer 
resort of the Madrilehos, where they visited the wonderful 
Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial, the huge 
pile of whitish granite, destitute of ornament, and 
broken by small windows ; one of the most remarkable 
edifices of all time which seems to rise out of the stony 
sides of the great Guadarrama Mountains, and resembles, 
except in its majestic facade, a fortress or a prison. 

“ How wonderful ! ” exclaimed Sylvia, as they were 
conducted into the magnificent church built on the 
p 


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226 

model of the original plan of St. Peter’s in Rome, with 
its forty-eight altars, each containing a valuable painting, 
its magnificent frescoes, and the immense high altar of 
valuable marbles and exquisitely gilded bronzes, before 
which many candles were burning. They were shown 
the Sacristia, the Pante^n de los Reyes, or burial vault 
of the Spanish monarchs, the Library, and afterwards 
the Royal Palace. 

Later they motored back along a road below which, 
in the gorgeous Spanish sunset, lay the plain of New 
Castile and Madrid on the one hand, and the 
Guadarrama Mountains on the other. 

Next evening Geoffrey again returned to El Pardo, 
and as he stood with Sylvia and Mrs. Mapleton upon 
the terrace of the villa, the banker’s wife pointed across 
to a towering rock upon the edge of the mountains. 

Over there is the Crow’s Cliff,” she said. ” From 
it, through many centuries, those guilty of murder were 
hurled. Indeed, even during the past few years 
battered bodies of men and women have been found 
beneath it, victims of those who have taken justice 
into their own hands.” 

” How horrible ! ” exclaimed the smart young South 
American girl. ” When was the last body found ? ” 

” About a year ago — a labourer in a vineyard close 
by, on going to work one morning, found the body of 
a well-dressed young woman. She was believed to 
be English by her clothes, but she was never identified. 
The police have abandoned their inquiries, as it is a 
complete mystery.” 

” She was purposely pushed over the Cliff, I suppose ?” 
remarked Geoffrey. 

” Perhaps,” replied his hostess. ” But it is believed 
that there have been cases where the guilty have been 
condemned and executed by their fellows in order to 
suppress any scandal. More than one person moving 
in the highest circles has been found dead beneath 
the Crow’s Cliff.” 

” Couldn’t we go up there and see it ? ” suggested 
Geoffrey. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 227 

** Certainly you could," she replied. " There is a 
good road, though rather hilly, and a path which takes 
you close to the edge of the Cliff." 

So all three went to see the Crow's Cliff. 

The road proved badly kept and shadeless, as are 
most of the roads in Spain, and the path was rocky 
and crooked as they ascended to the summit of the 
Pena Grajera — the Crow’s Cliff. 

At last all three walked to the edge of the precipice, 
where through the ages so many of the guilty ones 
had been hurled to destruction. 

" That story about the young Englishwoman haunts 
me ! " Geoffrey said to Sylvia as they approached the 
place and peered down upon the river winding across 
the plain below, which stretched away into the evening 
mist. " I wonder who she was ? " 

" Nobody will ever know," declared Mrs. Maple ton. 
" Here in Spain many murders are committed on account 
of jealousy or revenge. No doubt the motive was either 
one or the other." 

" Terrible ! " exclaimed Sylvia, shuddering at the 
thought of being flung over upon the crags below. 

"Yes. In Spain they regard death at the Crow's 
Cliff as the most ignominious end any person can suffer," 
remarked her hostess. "I've heard all sorts of weird 
stories about the place, which was a place of execution 
long before the days of the Inquisition. The peasantry 
believe that on certain nights the ghosts of black-robed 
and masked executioners haunt this road." 

The girl laughed. 

" Of course the ignorant country folk would naturally 
invent all sorts of horrible stories." 

" Well, it’s a horrible spot altogether," declared 
Falconer. And the party walked back to El Pardo 
together, where they dined late, and it was past midnight 
before Geoffrey arrived back at Aranjuez. 

While during the next few days he continued his 
work at the great wireless station there — the station 
known to all wireless men as " E.A.A.," and which 
works so regularly with Poldhu — Sylvia and her mother 


228 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


were taken about the country by their hostess to see 
old-world Toledo, Villarrubia, Tdavera, and the Tetas 
de Viana. 

A bald-headed Spanish doctor named Garcia, with 
his wife, a very handsome woman, had arrived from 
Burgos, and were also guests of the Maple tons. The 
Garcias had lived in Madrid for several years, and were 
great friends of the Mapletons. 

Indeed the truth was that when Dr. Garcia had 
found himself in serious financial difficulties three years 
before, the banker had secretly assisted him. Hence 
the doctor was considerably in his debt. 

One evening, a fortnight later, the party had been 
out to dinner at a neighbouring house, and on their 
return Mrs. Mapleton was suddenly taken very unwell. 
Her husband and the others became greatly alarmed, 
and the faithful Martin, who, in turn, became full of 
apprehension, called Dr. Garcia, who had already 
retired to bed. 

The doctor, when he examined the lady and noted 
the symptoms, came to the conclusion that she was 
suffering from acute indigestion, to which, apparently, 
she was subject. Something she had eaten at dinner 
had no doubt affected her, for by three o’clock in the 
morning she was much easier, and by next day the 
attack had passed. 

Indeed they motored into Madrid in the afternoon, 
where they visited the wonderful private collection 
of pictures belonging to the Duke of Alba, and the 
Prado Museum, afterwards enjoying that wonderful 
view from the Campillo de las Vistillas. Yet on the 
same evening Mrs. Mapleton was again taken unwell, 
and the same remedy which Dr. Garcia had prescribed 
was resorted to, with the result that two hours later 
she was quite herself again. 

Next day when at breakfast, Mrs. Mapleton said 
to Madame Garcia : 

” These attacks of indigestion are most anno5dng. 
Time after time I get them badly — and then I recover 
just as suddenly as I am attacked. The first time I 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 329 

had one was a year ago— and I was terribly ill for 
three days/' 

“ But the doctor has put you upon special diet," 
was madame's reply. "If you keep to that you will 
certainly be all right." 

Martin, who chanced to enter the room at the moment, 
eagerly asked after his mistress's health. 

That same afternoon Sylvia had an appointment with 
Geoffrey in Madrid. Her lover had been out at 
Aranjuez, busily engaged all day tr3dng to improve 
the continuous-wave panel, and was in ignorance 
of Mrs. Mapleton's indisposition. They, however, 
met as she had arranged, in the palm-court of the 
great Ritz Hotel in the Plaza de Canovas, and sat 
down to a pleasant tea. 

While chatting together the girl suddenly became 
very serious, saying : 

" There's something on my mind, Geoffrey — and — 
well, I hardly know what to say to you." 

" On your mind !" he echoed. " Why, what about ? " 

" Well, about Mrs. Mapleton. She's had two sudden 
and serious attacks on successive nights. Dr. Garcia, 
whom you met at El Pardo, put it down to indigestion, 
but — ^well, I don't think it is," said the girl. 

"You seem worried about your hostess," he remarked. 

" Yes. The fact is I'm suspicious of that woman, 
Madame Garcia." 

" Oh ! Why ? 

" Well, strictly between ourselves, Geoffrey, very 
late the other night when every one was asleep I heard 
Mr. Mapleton quarrelling with his wife, and the doctor's 
wife was mentioned by our hostess, who is, no doubt, 
jealous of her, though she will not show it in public.'* 

" Oh I Then Mrs. Mapleton is jealous of madame 
—eh?" 

"Yes. And this knowledge has aroused my suspicion. 
If Mr. Mapleton admires madame, there may be some 
subtle plot to get Mrs. Mapleton out of the way 1 " 
she said. 

Geoffrey looked at her open-mouthed. 


230 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

“ Do you really believe that ? he asked quickly. 

I most certainly do. I haven’t mentioned anything 
to mother,” said the girl. ” But I shall be very glad 
to get away from the place. I’m going to urge mother 
to make an excuse and cut short our visit.” 

” No. Don’t do that,” he answered quickly. ” If 
evil is intended, as you surmise, then your place is there 
to watch carefully and report to me. Our duty is to 
save the lady and expose the plot.” 

” Spaniards are experts with poisons,” Sylvia 
remarked. 

” I know. Therefore we should both act warily, 
and await the next development. In the meantime I 
will make some inquiries regarding the Garcias, who 
are so well-known here in Madrid,” 

What Sylvia had suggested at once aroused Geoffrey’s 
curiosity, and that evening he took his idol back to the 
Mapletons at El Pardo, where he was invited to remain 
to dinner. 

He watched Mr. Mapleton and the doctor’s wife 
very carefully, but he could not detect any sign of 
undue admiration. Indeed the banker scarcely took 
any notice of her, being much more attentive to Mrs. 
Beverley, his guest, while the bald-headed Dr. Garcia 
was most affable to Geoffrey himself. 

The ainner was a merry meal, and every one was 
chatting about the lovely motor-run they had made 
during the warm afternoon out to Sonseca, in the 
Mountains of Toledo, while Martin, grave-faced and 
urbane, served his master’s guests in eloquent silence. 

Falconer, sorely puzzled, left ea.Tly to get back to 
Aran juez. He could now fully understand the suspicions 
of Sylvia, yet he felt inclined to dismiss them, for he 
could discover nothing unusual in the Mapleton menage. 

Next evening, however, after his work was over, he 
went into Madrid in order to institute the inquiries he 
had promised Sylvia to make. 

Of several persons whom he had met since his arrival 
from England he made inquiry regarding Dr. Garcia, 
From an old Spaniard, who was manager of an antique 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 231 

shop in the Calle de Don Pedro, and whom he had met 
out at Aranjuez with one of the wireless operators, he 
learned a few interesting facts concerning the bald- 
headed doctor. 

Oh, yes,’' replied the old fellow in broken English, 
** Dr. Garcia is very well known in Madrid. He 
married a woman from Burgos, Carolina Almagro, 
about five years ago. She was previously engaged to 
marry the English banker, Senor Mapleton.” 

“ \^at ? ” gasped Geoffrey. Was Madame Garcia 
once engaged to marry Mr. Mapleton ? ” 

Oh, yes, senor. Every one in Madrid knows that.” 

Geoffrey Falconer held his breath, and remained 
silent for a few moments. 

” But how long has Mr. Mapleton been married ? ” 

” Oh, about four years — ^not more. He married 
an English lady — and a very nice lady she is. Once or 
twice she has bought old furniture here.” 

” But Dr. Garcia and his wife have left Madrid,” 
Geoffrey remarked as they sat together in the dark 
little shop, surrounded by all sorts of curios. 

” Yes. He sold the practice to Dr. Salcedo soon 
after his marriage, and went away. I don’t know 
where he is now.” 

” But tell me,” urged Geoffrey. ” How is it that 
the lady, being engaged to the banker, married the 
doctor ? ” 

The old man grinned, while his black eyes twinkled. 

” There was a whisper of some scandal. They say 
that is the reason why the doctor and his wife left 
Madrid.” 

All that was being told to Falconer went to establish 
the motive why a secret attempt should be made upon 
Mrs. Mapleton ’s life. It was all news to Geoffrey. He 
had believed that Mapleton had been married fully 
ten years. 

In other quarters he prosecuted inquiries, but the 
result was always the same — the story of the sudden 
marriage of the English banker’s Spanish fiancee, 
and the gossip which ensued. 


232 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

Several further days passed, and then one evening 
Geoffrey, having been to the Eslava Theatre, was 
leaving in order to return to Aranjuez, when, to his 
surprise, he saw walking along the dark street in front 
of him the familiar figure of Mr. Mapleton, and at his 
side was Madame Garcia ! 

They had evidently been to the theatre together. 
He followed them unseen, and saw them enter the car, 
and drive back to El Pardo together. 

This, indeed, further aroused his suspicions con- 
cerning Mrs. Mapleton’s repeated seizures. 

Next afternoon he went to El Pardo again with the 
express purpose of keeping his eyes open, and also of 
telling Sylvia in confidence what he had learnt. 

The pair while walking in the garden agreed that 
there was distinct suspicion that either Mr. Mapleton 
might be plotting to get rid of his wife, or that the 
handsome Spanish woman might be endeavouring to 
poison her rival through motives of jealousy. As 
Sylvia pointed out, Mapleton was very rich, while 
Madame Garcia was the wife of a poor professional 
man in financial difficulties. The woman could not 
obtain the luxuries, smart dresses, and sojourns at Aix, 
Dinant, or San Sebastian, for which she longed. 

'' She is always deploring the fact that she leads 
such a humdrum life," the girl went on. “ Only 
yesterday she told me that she envied us, travelling 
about as we do." 

" Well, personally, I don't like madame," her lover 
said. Her eyes are cruel and vindictive, and she 
seems to bear an entirely false affection for her hostess." 

" Mrs. Mapleton is charming," declared Sylvia as 
they halted on the terrace, from which a beautiful 
view of Madrid could be seen across the plain. " I 
wonder if her husband has any suspicion ? Surely 
Dr. Garcia could discover whether those mysterious 
attacks are due to indigestion — or to foul play ? " 

" The doctor's wife would never let her husband 
into her guilty secret," Geoffrey said. Then after a 
pause, be added : "Of course if the banker himself 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


233 

had experienced similar seizures one could discern in 
them a motive — ^namely, that the doctor being deeply 
in his debt wanted to get rid of him, for by his death 
he would get out of his heavy liabilities. But the 
affair concerns only the banker’s wife.” 

” It’s a complete mystery, Geoff,” declared the 
girl. ” I watch them all closely day after day, but 
I become more and more mystified. I long to tell 
mother, but I have acted upon your advice, and kept 
my own counsel. Only to-day at breakfast Mrs. 
Mapleton, who, of course, is aU unsuspecting, invited 
the Garcias to remain for another fortnight. After 
that they are going to Granada. And a week later 
the Mapletons go to Barcelona, where he has a branch 
of his bank, while we go back to London.” 

” Then during the next fortnight we must be very 
watchful,” Falconer said, and as at that moment Mrs. 
Mapleton, walking with the handsome Madame Garcia, 
came along the terrace, they dropped the subject, and 
Falconer became most enthusiastic regarding the 
glorious view. 

Next morning at about ten o’clock Geoffrey Falconer 
was busy re-wiring part of the powerful transmitting 
apparatus at the wireless station at Aranjuez, 
when one of the operators handed him a telegram 
which had just been received over the land line from 
Madrid. 

It was open, upon a form, just as it had been 
received. The words he read were : 

•'Another seizure. Unconscious for three hours. 

Just recovered. Meet me at the Ritz in Madrid at 

four this afternoon , — Sylvia.” 

Geoffrey realised the extreme gravity of the situation. 
He had been making many secret inquiries. The 
mystery of it all had not only fascinated him, but it 
had placed him upon his mettle. Sylvia, the girl 
whom he loved so passionately, had, by her woman’s 
shrewd keenness, first aroused the suspicion which had 


234 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

daily grown stronger until the grave peril of the banker's 
charming wife obsessed him. 

On five different occasions, from that complicated- 
looking apparatus of the high-power wireless station, 
with which at the moment he was surrounded, he had 
sent out with great difficulty and very weakly in the 
Marconi International Code, long messages to M.P.D. 
—or Poldhu in Cornwall — inquiries concerning Mapleton 
and others — ^^which next day had been answered in 
the same code. 

These answers, unknown to Sylvia, had opened up 
an entirely new channel of inquiry. That telegram 
from El Pardo confirmed certain suspicions which 
had come to him during the past two days. 

That there was a deliberate and desperate attempt 
to get rid of Mrs. Mapleton had become an established 
fact. It only lay with Sylvia and her lover to save 
the unfortunate victim, to lay bare the plot, and to 
bring the guilty person or persons to their just 
punishment. 

When at four o'clock Sylvia met Geoffrey in the Ritz, 
her first words were : 

Poor Mrs. Mapleton had a terribly narrow escape 
last night ! Dr. Garcia grew very alarmed, and at 
two o’clock this morning telephoned to Madrid to 
Dr. Figueroa, who, I believe, is one of the most dis- 
tinguished pathologists in Spain. He arrived at about 
half-past four, and in consultation agreed with Garcia 
that it was acute indigestion. Fortunately, an hour 
afterwards Mrs. Mapleton was quite well again." 

" And what was the attitude of Madame Garcia ? " 
asked Geoffrey eagerly. 

" Oh, very agitated and fussy, of course, all of it 
well assumed. She’s a most wonderful actress. All 
the women of the South are the same." 

" But does Garcia know ? " 

** I feel sure he is in complete ignorance. I watch 
them all every hour — every minute — but I can find 
no tangible evidence against anyone. The only motive 
that there can be is Madame Garcia’s jealousy," 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 235 

Then she must be the culprit/’ Falconer said. 
‘'It is evident that she must somehow doctor her 
hostess’s food — eh ? But surely that must be difficult.” 

" No doubt, but it is being accomplished somehow, 
for how is it that none of us suffer from any ill-effects ? ” 
said the girl. 

" Because you are not subject to ‘ acute indigestion ’ 
as Mrs. Mapleton is,” was his reply as he smiled 
meaningly. ” The attacks are certainly curious. They 
seem to occur after eating, just as indigestion would 
occur,” Falconer went on. ” But how is it possible 
that this Spanish woman can tamper with her hostess’s 
food alone, unless she is in league with the cook, and 
that is quite inconceivable. The whole history of 
both Garcia, and his wife, and Mapleton and Mrs. 
Mapleton certainly points to but one motive — Madame 
Garcia’s jealousy 1 ” 

” But do you think that Mr. Mapleton can have no 
knowledge of what is in progress ? ” asked the girl 
to whom the young wireless engineer was so devoted. 

” No ; I'm convinced that he has not. His friend 
the doctor has diagnosed the complaint as indigestion, 
hence he has no suspicions, and does not seek a further 
medical opinion.” 

” That is so. Mother only yesterday suggested to 
him in private that he should ask for another doctor 
to see his wife, but he declared that he had the greatest 
confidence in Dr. Garcia’s judgment.” Then she added : 
” It was Dr. Garcia himself who sent into Madrid for 
another doctor this morning.” 

” Then we can do no more, save to still prosecute 
inquiries, and watch the progress of events.” 

During the next two days young Falconer was very 
busy making some tests with Poldhu. From the 
” Devil’s Oven,” far away on the rocky Cornish coast, 
they at first sent him replies on “spark” in response, 
but after twenty hours of hard work, during which they 
constantly disturbed the ether by sending long and 
numerous series of “ V's ” — ^namely, three dots and a 
dash — the letter of the alphabet used in wireless for 


236 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

testing purposes, his transmission was at last declared 
by Poldhu to be “ good," but not anything really great 
— in fact " R.y.,'* as Poldhu put it. 

There was still a fault somewhere, and amid that 
tangle of wires, the mass of up-to-date apparatus, and 
the great vacuum glass globes — ^huge balls of light 
when transmission was in progress — ^he stood dismayed 
and puzzled. A fault in wireless transmission is often 
most difficult to trace, and it was so in this case. The 
two engineers at Aranjuez had failed to discover it, 
and for that reason young Falconer had been sent 
over as an expert to find and remedy it. It was the 
more baffling because after re-wiring it the first time, 
he was able to communicate with Poldhu about Dr. 
Garcia and Mapleton. Then a slight fault had necessi- 
tated an alteration, and now it was again wrong. 

As he stood there that morning gazing into the big 
valve-panel, undecided as to what test next to apply, 
one of the operators, a young Spaniard, handed him a 
message form, saying that it had just come in from 
Poldhu. It was in the International Code ; therefore 
Falconer went to the adjoining room, and taking down 
the big book which gives a “ figure " and " letter " 
code in aU the principal commercial languages, 
including Japanese, he soon succeeded in de-codmg 
the message. 

When he did so he sat back aghast. The truth was 
now apparent. 

His inquiries in London regarding the Mapletons 
were slowly throwing a light upon a most dramatic 
situation. 

That day he felt justified in leaving his work early, 
and in the evening he travelled to the far north of 
Spain to San Sebastian, that gay seaside resort which 
is the favourite summer resort of the Madrilenos. He 
arrived there in the early morning, having spent the 
night in the so-called “ express." He took his coffee 
at the old-fashioned H6tel Ezcurra, in the Paseo de 
la Zurriola, and then he went round to the Prefecture 
of Police. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 237 

To the rather lazy underling whom he found there 
he made an explanation, and at ten o’clock he was 
shown into the bureau of the chief of police himself, 
an elderly, alert little man, who listened to the young 
Englishman very attentively. As he proceeded with 
his story, and as he related what had been sent by 
wireless from England, the officiars interest grew. 

For two hours Geoffrey Falconer remained there, 
examining documents, and questioning four Spanish 
detectives by the aid of the official interpreter. 

And now, Sefior Falconer,” said the chief of police 
at last, ” the best line of action for you is to return and 
keep a secret and strict watch. You know all I have told 
you, and what are my suspicions. It is fortunate, 
very fortunate, that your young lady friend has 
detected what is in progress. On my part I will 
send by to-night’s mail a report to the police of Madrid, 
who will be on the alert for any developments. They 
will place our great pathologist. Professor Barrera, 
at your disposal, should any analysis be required. We 
are at the moment quite powerless to act, but we look 
to you for such information as shall save the lady’s life.” 

About noon on the following day Falconer called 
at the Mapleton’s house in El Pardo as though upon a 
casual visit. As soon as he met Sylvia, the girl called 
him aside, and whispered : 

” I’m so glad you are here, Geoffrey. Mrs. 
Mapleton had another attack last night, but is better 
now. She is in the habit of eating but very little dinner, 
and taking some patent invalid food just before going 
to bed. I managed to save a little of it before Martin 
cleared it away. IVe got it in a bottle upstairs.*’ 

” Excellent. I will take it at once to Professor 
Barrera,” replied Falconer. ” He will analyse it, and 
see whether it has been doctored.” 

The young Englishman remained to luncheon, and 
then, without telling anyone of his journey to San 
Sebastian, he went back to Madrid, and there saw 
the Professor, who had already been warned by the 
police. 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 


238 

Next day, when Falconer called upon Professor 
Barrera, he was told that into the invalid food had 
been introduced the juice of a certain poisonous 
mushroom which produced the exact symptoms of 
acute indigestion, and which, when absorbed by the 
human body, was almost impossible to detect. It 
was one of the most subtle and dangerous poisons 
known to modem toxicologists. 

'' The mushroom is a large dark-grey fungus with 
scarlet spots and grows on the mountains. It is found 
often in the Guadarrama,'' he said. “ Whoever is 
using it must be an expert poisoner.” 

With that knowledge, and the other knowledge he 
now possessed. Falconer waited until evening, and 
then returned to El Pardo, where he was asked to 
remain to dinner, and to sleep, as a motor excursion 
had been arranged for the following day. 

He dined, but though he went to his room, he could 
not sleep. The night was moonlit, and from his window 
he had a good view of the white road outside. Instead 
of undressing, he watched that road through the night 
hours until the first streak of dawn. It slowly became 
light at about four o’clock, when suddenly he saw the 
figure of a man going out upon a brisk walk. 

Without a second’s hesitation he took his hat, and 
creeping silently down the stairs, let himself out. 

By that time the man, whose figure he had recognised 
as Martin’s, was far ahead. The morning mist was 
thick as, leaving the highway, he ascended the steep 
hill-path, Geoffrey, whose rubber-soled boots made 
but little noise, following swiftly. 

The rough winding way led to the summit of the 
Crow’s Clifi, until Martin at last reached the top. 

Then Geoffrey saw the butler bending down, eagerly, 
examining a patch of grass near the edge of the Cliff 
He was searching for that deadly grey fungus with the 
scarlet spots, which, when gathered at dawn, was most 
dangerous to human life ! 

Falconer, modest in his scientific achievements, but 
bold when faced with an alternative, saw the man in 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 239 

the act of picking one of the mushrooms, and suddenly 
sprang upon him. 

At last, Martin ! '' he cried. ** So it is you who 
are trying to poison your mistress I Now I know 
the truth ! ” 

The fellow, his face blanched, flung himself free. 

What do you mean ? shouted the exemplary 
butler in wild defiance. 

** I mean that you are not Mrs. Mapleton's servant at 
all ! You are her rightful husband, and moreover 
you were a partner with her in certain shady trans- 
actions. You and she ran a private gaming-house in 
Bayswater, and afterwards at San Sebastian. From 
the profits of the place Mrs. Mapleton derived her 
private income, unknown to Mapleton, who believes 
it is from Consols. Four years ago one, Paul Berton, 
a rich French landowner, was robbed and died 
mysteriously in that house in San Sebastion — killed 
in circumstances which left no doubt in your wife’s 
mind that you were the assassin,” 

'' It's quite untrue ! ” protested Martin. 

Let me go on,” said Falconer. ” Your wife hated 
you, because you were a murderer. She fell in love 
with Mapleton, and under threats of disclosing your 
crime to the police, she compelled you to remain aside, 
and she married the man she loved. Then you 
persecuted the unfortunate woman, who believed that 
she was safely out of your clutches. You compelled 
her to engage you as her butler. Why ? Your first 
idea was to poison Mapleton, so that you should get 
his money through his wife. But when she saw through 
your plot and threatened to expose you, you sought 
to secretly poison her, and thus close her lips — at the 
same time throwing suspicion upon the jealous woman, 
Madame Garcia ! ” 

” A lie — an absolute lie 1 ” 

No, it is the truth, Mr, Sharman — alias Barnes — 
alias half a dozen other names. Your record is at 
Scotland Yard, together with your finger prints. I 
have them in my pocket. Truly, yours is a dastardly 


240 TRACKED BY WIRELESS 

and ingenious game. You poisoned poor Berton with 
the same decoction of mushroom-juice that you are 
now using on your wife ! 

Without a second’s delay the man Martin sprang at 
Geoffrey, who was close to the edge of the Crow’s Cliff 
— the execution place of the Middle Ages. Next moment 
the young radio-engineer, feeling himself gripped 
suddenly and rushed to the edge of the precipice, 
executed, to save his life, a very clever manceuvre, and 
by dint of some swift athletic turns he succeeded in 
swinging round his adversary until the latter had his 
back to the precipice. 

The two men fought for life, there upon the very 
brink of the grave 1 Martin was determined to silence 
his accuser. 

But Geoffrey, who at Oxford had learnt the Japanese 
system of self-defence, suddenly gripped the assassin 
by the waist, and rushing him backwards to the cliff, 
flung him from him with force, crying ; 

** That is your fate — ^the same that every secret 
poisoner deserves ! ’ 

There was a scream, and next instant the scoundrel 
struck a pointed rock just below. Then he fell heavily 
from crag to crag until, a few seconds later, he lay 
deep down in the undergrowth at the cliff foot, mangled 
and dead — ^his fate being indeed a just one. 

Next day the Impargial, in Madrid, printed a long 
account of the tragic discovery, with a photograph 
of the dead English servant. The paper called it “ The 
Mystery of the Crow’s Cliff.” But even to-day Mr. 
Mapleton with the doctor and Mrs. Garcia naturally 
regard the whole affair as a tragic mystery, for they 
still aver that the butler Martin was one of the most 
trustworthy of servants, and believe that he must 
have met with foul play at the hands of some 
low-born enemy. Mrs. Mapleton alone suspects the 
truth ! 

Three months after the affair Geoffrey Falconer, 
who had been paid a very considerable sum for the 
rights of his improved microphone amplifier and for 


TRACKED BY WIRELESS 241 

several improvements in wireless calling devices, asked 
Mrs. Beverley for her daughter’s hand. 

The ** Wild Widow ” admired him, and after a lung 
discussion, gave her consent. So six months ago they 
were married at St. Martin ’s-in-the-Fields, and at the 
wedding nearly half the engineering staff from the 
Marconi Works at Chelmsford attended. 

Truly the guilty secrets of many men and women 
have been detected by means of wireless, that science 
which daily reveals its further wonders to those per- 
severing experimenters who seek so patiently to 
penetrate its mysteries. 


Cahill & Coi, Lid., London, Dnllin, and Drogheda. 





















